if you could....

Def a camcorder for me. Have loads of photos of my 3 but how I would loved to see them running and talking again !

Central Heating would have been lovely

I think that email would have helped me a lot. I struggled with depression, when the children were small, & a lot of the time I didn't really want to talk on the phone & composing a letter seemed too much like hard work. To be able to just dash off a few sentences, to a caring friend, & get a relatively quick reply would have eased the isolation - mental not physical.

When I was growing up...... a shower. I had three sisters and Oh the queue for the bathroom. When we were younger it was a tin bath in front of the fire with mum topping up from the kettle.

Wifi-Broadband has changed everything would love to have been able to have that as a child especially at Christmas.

Easy contact with everybody by chatting on WhatsApp etc and sharing photos of any occasion.

By example, all our three daughters and their families have been sharing photos and videos on WhatsApp of them putting up Christmas decorations......Wonderful...realy getting into the Christmas spirit now.

Now started putting up our trees and posting that on WhatsApp to them.

One thing I do remember now is that we didn't moan or complain at the time about all the things we needed and didn't have. We battled on, regardless and were too busy to think about anything apart from loads of washing and standing for hours ironing it. It was hard work.

Back in the day we had slides made. Boxes of them. A few years ago we bought a simple, cheap transformer to convert them into digital format. Oh my!! Amazing. And my sisters loved discovering the old pics.

I would also choose a mobile phone with camera for the reasons others have given. We married in 1965 and didn’t have a home phone until the mid 1970s. Both sets of parents lived about 30 miles away in different directions from us and neither of them had home phones either. My father was diagnosed with cancer soon after we married and died early in 1966. It was a horrible time and my brother had to contact me at work to keep me informed which was very upsetting. My FIL died suddenly in 1968 and the police had to knock on our door to tell us and also on the doors of his two sisters, something they can never forget. It would have made such a difference for us all if we had mobile phones then and we both have very few pictures of our parents as they didn’t have cameras either.

Oh yes, a mobile phone, as similar to M0nica and farview, DH was often sent to far-off and sometimes dangerous remote foreign countries for weeks at a time with no way of contacting him except through British HQ. Could have been in touch every day if we'd each had a mobile then.

A tumble drier , would have been a godsend .
I hated drippy steamy washing hanging everywhere , especially on rainy northern days when you rarely saw the sun . Odd as I loved hand washing and the smell of freshly ironed clothes.

Just a simple washing machine and spin dryer, oh, and a solar panel for the electricity to cut the bills

I agree with red1. I am lucky enough to have had many of these when I had my first baby (though I forgot to put a film in my camera when she was born, so a digital one would have been better!), but as a technological dinosaur I think social media is a mixed blessing and I am uncomfortable with the idea of being contactable anywhere at all times. Even with granddaughter due in five weeks I'm not going on Facebook!

Yes a washing machine here too, and swimming nappies would have loved them.

A mobile phone and social media would have helped me to keep in touch with family when we lived in Africa in the 80s. It would have stopped me feeling so homesick

Online grocery shopping. This was before the days of 24 hour shopping, so I couldn't go after my husband got home from work. I used to dread having to do the weekly shop with three of them in tow.

To be able to "shop" online without interruption, without "mummy I need a wee", without having to referee arguments and having things surreptitiously added to the trolley, with a nice cup of tea to hand, would have been bliss.

Although I do remember when our local Sainsbury was first opened. My daughter was at school by that time, so I went along to Sainsbury with the two boys and was THRILLED to find a trolley with two child seats in it. No longer a need for chameleon eyes!

Lullydully So the ruining of the environment is not an issue?

A modern day husband. My husband did nothing to help with our two girls, all left to me and feel they lost out on on so much. See my two SIL interact with their children and its lovely - they share the care 50/50 and its lovely to see the bond that the GC have with them.

A tumble drier going back when I was small I would have loved my parents to have a camera I have no baby photos .

I would have to say a washing machine, I didn't get one until my first child was a year old, all washing had to be done by hand. I would have loved some heating in the house too so that the washing would dry.

Washing machine, yeah. Nappies. Husband's HANKIES!

But even more the internet. To find out all the things I look up. My mother, before she died, wanted to know things like 'How and why did we get Hong Kong?' (Being a teacher all her life) and I never knew how to find out..... too late now.
Now I can look up almost anything.

Without a doubt the latest Apple IPad.. Our tv was a second hand fourteen inch black and white we bought for ten u.k pounds from a family who were emigrating. DH worked long hours my parents and in laws some distance away. Now we have entertainment and access to the rest of the world with what we hold in our hands.

We laugh now about washing my husbands army fatigues in the bath. We’d both jump up and down on them, oh the joys of youth. Then there was the joy of a separate washing machine and spindryer. In the 80’s we bought our first automatic washing machine and I can still see me sitting on the floor in awe and with great happiness watching it. It also soothed my very colicky baby. So I’d forgo an automatic washing machine in those early days for those memories. (Wouldn’t want to repeat it now though) on balance I’d say an iPad I could take photos of the children, talk to my family while we were in Germany and my husband was away for somtimes months on end. The evenings and weekends could be very lonely. FaceTime would have been fantastic,my husband and my family wouldn’t have missed out on the children’s growing up. This thread makes you realise how much life has changed and all the advances we’ve made. It’s bought many happy memories to the fore thanks.

We had a camera spasmodically ( maybe borrowed!?)...got some very nice photos though. My mother had only school photos of us ( sometimes) one of my elder sister and two bros at a big store in London standing beside Muffin the Mule!? I would have been gone with mum as s new-born. She had one of my eldest brother (school) one of him taken with football team in an oversized goalie jumper! One of my youngest brother crawling around our front garden. But the earliest one of me is about 4 years old and that in conjunction with the two bros. Yes....definitely wish my mum had had a good camera and we had more family photos. I now over compensate by taking loads of grandkids on my phone the sending them ofvto FreePrints (great service). But of course the few photos we have are more valued I think because they are scarce .

My iPhone! and internet! I can find great deals, easily be contactable even away from home and watch tv and listen to the radio besides WhatsApp, messenger and face book all of which keep me in touch with distant family and friends and upload pictures!

an automatic (had twintub) and dishwasher. Yes I know thats two.