Oh pleeeeeease let me have one!!!

I don't remember the lipstick holder on my Pink Witch bicycle Greyduster but am sure it must have had one I can remember my Father impressing on me that I had to clean it and polish it after I used it and I did I was so thrilled to have been given it . As for the pink crib * ninathenana* well I have had plenty of flowers since so shouldn't complain and I am sure my hormones were all over the place at the time but I can remember actually crying 'cos no one had bought me one - how shallow was I ? Have to say I probably haven't changed much

When passed scholarship to go to grammar school my Mum bought me a canvas satchel, every girl in the class had a smart leather one, I will never forget. With my children I remember how kids love to conform.

Yes, there were Dr Jem and Dr Jack who married Joey and Madge and presumably fathered all those children. I think they spent most of their time effecting miracle cures at the sanatorium as they were seldom around!

I loved the Chalet School books and read all of them. It never occurred to me at the time that these girls were really rich and I certainly wasn't. It was also a completely male free environment which looking back seems odd. Were there any men in the Chalet School books?

I also loved the Jennings books and used to laugh out loud at the carryings on of Jennings and his friends. Also the Just William books had the same effect.

My favourite comic was School Friend and I had the annual every year until I was 13 went on to Valentine and Romeo comics.

Yes we wanted very little.

My own children now in their mid forties and late thirties didn't have much more really when I look back although they did have a very early computer which my DH made for them (he was a computer buff.)

My grandchildren think of Tablets, Lap Tops and mobile phones as the norm. I think they'll have to really as the future becomes more and more high tec.,

Oh I so wanted to go to the Chalet School! Jo with her tribe of children and the triplets who all seemed to arrive without any male involvement....it was all very chaste! I always wanted a pet, it didn't matter what, just a pet, but it wasn't possible being a Forces family plus having an animal phobic mother! I once had 2/6d birthday money and went to the local pet shop and bought myself a kitten. I must have been about 7 or 8, I can still remember my mother's hysterics and being made to take it back. I was heartbroken. (Felt quite sorry for my younger self there) Consequently I've had cats since I left home and my mother sat with her feet curled under her every time she visited.

"Oh granny you are/were crazy!" seems to be the response I get to most things.
I had forgotten about boarding school. I wanted to go as well. Preferably to the Chalet School!

Reading through this thread it struck me just how very modest most of our childhood yearnings were: jelly sandals, bonnets, plastic slides, shop bought cardigans, patent shoes. I wonder what today's youngsters, with their X-boxes and eye-wateringly expensive trainers, would make of these rather humble aspirations?

I too longed for the silver party shoes. I didn't get any, despite lingering looks at the shop window. I only ever wore Clarkes ' jonquil'! Not very elegant with a pretty dress!

Funnily even now, I've never owned silver shoes. I think I'll treat myself!

They used to be wrapped in black paper because the light would tarnish the silver in the fabric.

x

I inherited some silver slip on party shoes from a friend's daughter. For some extraordinary reason , they had to be wrapped in black tissue paper when not in use . I don't remember hankering after clothes - as an only child most of them were pass-me-downs from the same friend and it was always exciting when another bag arrived! I do remember wanting a transistor radio with ear plugs. I was at boarding school by then and everyone seemed to have one, so my Dad said if I saved half, he would then double it. I saved threepenny bits and sixpences from pocket and birthday money. It took 18 months by which time I had almost gone off the idea., but it did have a lovely brown leather case which I can still smell to this day as it was secreted under my pillow for illicit use at night..

When I did cookery at school aged about 13 the teacher said we had to buy a wicker basket with a plastic cover to take home our cookery in but I had to make do with a mushroom basket (so embarrassing.) My parents were really hard up because my dad couldn't work after the war.

I was also desperate for a big white plastic hair slide which you clipped onto the back of your hair, they were all the rage at school. (late 1950s)

I had got used to never asking for anything but one day I cracked and said to my parents "I really really need a proper basket for cookery and one of those big plastic hair slides."

They were so shocked because I never asked for anything and they gave me 5 shillings to go and buy the basket and the hair slide.

I can remember walking to school complete with cookery basket and the slide fixed to the back of my hair feeling soooo happy.

I had a green tonic suit (skirt/jacket) and a pink and white striped Ben Sherman. I thought I was the "bees knees"

"I had forgotten about 'Birthday' shoes!!"

Are they like a birthday suit? My father was at school with lots of kids who were in bare feet during the depression in the 1930s. The only reason he wasn't one of them was that his dad was able to do some cobbling on the kitchen table to bring in some money when he was out of work.

When I was a kid I had a pair of Tuf Wayfarers, the shoes with a compass in the heel and animal tracks on the soles. They were the first and last fashion item I ever got because they were expensive and they didn't last long, so that was just too much for a dad who had felt lucky to have any shoes at all.

When the other fashions came and went I did without: Chelsea boots, Stacks, Platforms, Budgies, Crombies, Tonics, Ben Shermans, but it left me with a healthy disrespect for fashion though.

Greyduster I had forgotten about 'Birthday' shoes!!

I also longed for a pony, my DGU used to promise me one when he 'came up on the Pools!' I read all the pony books I could find, my favourite was 'Wish for a Pony' and DD is called after the main character.

I also wanted to go to boarding school, it sounded such fun, but the reality would have been different I think.

Oh chloe1984 I feel for you.
I had one of those cribs with artificial flowers when DD was born and one in the shape of a pink teddy. I kept them for years.

I remember the Pink Witch bicycle chloe1984! Didn't it have a lipstick holder?

I had a pink witch bicycle for Christmas and I loved it . When I had the first of my two daughters and had a 14 night stay in the maternity hospital I longed and longed for someone to buy me flowers presented in a pink lacy crib thing. I can remember laying in bed seeing the nurses bringing the deliveries for the day down the ward and wishing and wishing that one was for me and my daughter. Of course I got flowers and cards but I never did get a pink crib not then or for the next baby. Haven't thought about it for years and now I feel deprived all over again when I just mentioned it to my DH he said Oh you should have said I would have bought you one.......

I wanted a pony. I REALLY wanted a pony, from a very young age. I had it all worked out, my grandparents were farmers so I could ride it in the holidays. Then when I was nine I entered a competition (I spent a week's pocket money on the stamp!) to win one, was showing the magazine to my sisters and my mother hit the roof and was really nasty to me.

My father came in to see what was going on, and my mother told him. He started to say, it wouldn't matter if I did win, there would be room on the farm, and then he went 'Ahhhh.....'

My mother has a real fear of horses. I didn't win the competition, although I did end up with horses eventually, but she was nowhere to be seen if they even came near the fence. I was tempted to let one loose on occasion - she really did say some nasty things when I entered that competition!

When I went to grammar school my mother made my blouses out of Viyella to keep me warm. (We had recently moved up to the frozen north - Stockport) Everybody else wore white cotton, mine were cream.
The school supplied only faint sketches so all my home made uniform was noticeably different from those bought from the school outfitters. My mother insisted that home made anything was SUPERIOR to anything bought.
I also desperately wanted proper glasses instead of NHS pink wire ones.

I always had good, sensible, shoes as a child - Clarks, Norvic or Birthday - but I longed for a pair of sandals for the summer and my mother would never buy them. "Your dad won't be able to mend the soles if they wear out!" Was the excuse. The only other thing I hankered after was a racing bicycle with loads of gears, but my father disapproved of girls riding bikes with drop handlebars, so I had to make do with a sensible model with three gears you changed with a little lever on the handlebars! Not as much fun, but we did some miles together, cycling round the Peak District. The hills were a mare though!

I always wanted a jumper but my overbearing granny with whom I lived, always made my mother knit a cardigan for me. Although the cardis were lovely and usually knitted in a pretty colour I wanted a polo necked jumper. I finally got one from an aunt for Christmas when I was a obout 14. Trousers too, I longed for and was not allowed until puberty then my horrid granny said it was ok to wear trousers as it would take a man ages to get them off if I was attacked. The first day I wore my trousers and polo neck jumper I felt fabulous, so grown up.

Ana that was wonderfully resourceful of you - and only six. You deserved a pet monkey
roses I agree. Actually, now I think of it, I was younger when I rebelled, about 10, and my long hair did look good in a pony tail. I was so proud of it!

Ana you must have been the inspiration for the book 'Dear Zoo'!

Ana, all respect to you as a six year old for writing and posting a letter to the zoo!Monkeys are over rated as pets though, and swing about on the curtains and use up all the tea bags,
Indinana, they should have allowed you your long hair, it would have looked great in a pony tail.

DGD1 desperately wanted a fringe like her sister but was not allowed one, although she seems to have got over it now.

I was tempted to tell her about my little trick with the nail scissors, but thought DIL would not be pleased with me.

More than the bonnet, more than the jellies, more than tutus or bikes or 'shop made' jumpers and cardigans, I wanted long hair. My sister had lovely long, wavy hair, but because I showed up with disappointingly straight hair, I wasn't allowed to grow it. As soon as my hair was below my earlobes, my dad, who was a barber, would get his scissors out and tuck the horribly itchy blue and white gingham cape round my neck, and get to work. Oh how I cried myself to sleep each time I pleaded in vain to be allowed to grow it. As soon as I reached my teens I rebelled and refused to have it cut again - by then straight hair was all the rage thanks to Cathy McGowan so my long straight hair was bang on trend!
When my DD came along, I vowed never to stop her doing what she wanted with her hair. Thankfully she never wanted to do anything really crazy