I grew up in the UK in the 1970's-1980's, these are a few of the things (good and bad) I remember from the 'old days'.
THE GOOD
1. Chelsea Whoppers. A delicious chocolately fudge-type confectionary dusted with cocoa powder. They came in 'sheets' that you could tear into strips of 10 and cost a penny a strip. I was addicted to them, but sadly they disappeared. A couple of years ago though I went to my local corner shop and there were Chelsea Whoppers!!! Apparently someone had re-discovered the old recipe and was producing them again, and travelling around selling them to small retail stores. Chelsea Whoppers can now be found on a number of online retro sweets stores but sadly they are no longer 1p, infact, I have read several forum posts of people having to pay £12.20 (inc. postage) for 60 whoppers!! They were good, but not THAT good. If you remember Chelsea Whoppers, you may also remember Cremola Foam, a frothy sherberty type drink mix that may also be making a comeback soon after an original can of product was discovered and the recipe recreated.
2. Why Don't You...? A kids television show who's full title was: "Why Don't You Just Switch Off Your Television Set And Go Out And Do Something Less Boring Instead?" I loved it, my sister hated it. The show started in the early 1970's and actually ran up until the 1990's. It featured groups of kids from different UK regions giving suggestions on hobbies and crafts, jokes etc and initially ran during school summer holidays. It was always kind of ironic that a tv show was telling us to switch off our tv, lol. Along the same lines, I used to love 'Rainy Day Cards', a box of cards of different colours with craft and games suggestions on them, but, I always seemed to find that there was something required for a particular project that we just didn't have in the house, ah well.
THE BAD
1. 'Tartan' denim. I remember around about 1980 or so having a pair of jeans that were a pale, pastel tartan colour. Pinks and yellows and faded denim blue. I guess that I liked them at the time because I sure wore them a lot with a pair of pastel pink shoes, but I cringe at the memory of them now. As if the naff 'tartan' wasn't bad enough, my particular pair of jeans had tapering legs with zippers at the bottom and were about an inch above my ankle (by design). Thankfully, no photographs survive of me this horrendous fashion faux pas :)
2. Deputy Dawg. Although it ended in 1972 (the year I was born) it was shown for many years after in the UK at least and it's one of the shows I grew up with. I guess it wasnt all that bad since I watched it, but it sure wasn't Hong Kong Phooey!
