What The Butler Saw

Here's a list of things from the 80s I miss:

Come and Praise (I am not sure, but think that was what it was called - can anyone remember?)
A slim blue C of E hymnbook with a montage picture of a group of faces on the cover. Contained all my favourite primary school hymns like 'Autumn days when the grass is jewelled' and 'Lord of the Dance'. It vanished into the mists of time in my parents' house, along with so many other childhood artefacts.

Happy Families card game
It had the cutest illustrations. All the families were woodland animals, eg the hedgehog family!

Stamp collection that would today be worth thousands
When I was about six, some kind person (I don't recall who) gave me their grown-up child's stamp collection so I could take it forward through the 1980s. It was already a highly developed album containing many 1950s-1970s stamps. For some reason, I never realised it could be valuable one day, and neglected to take care of it. I probably gave it to charity. I just hope someone somewhere has made a mint out of it.

80s ice cream flavours
Seems bizarrely old fashioned today, but remember when raspberry ripple was THE taste sensation? As fresh and exciting then as Haagen Dazs cookies and cream was in 1991....ooh, and there was also mint- choc-chip, and neopolitan. And M&S's popular puddings were things like apricot roly poly.

Twinkle magazine
I used to read this lying on my bedroom floor popping those white milk sweets into my mouth. Have no memories about what the magazine contained today, I just remember being rather addicted to it. Then I moved onto Bunty, then Girl, then my older sister's old Jackies (they had the best photostories) and from then on it was a long descent into the NME and Just 17.

Merlin's Castle
I would still play this obsessively today if I got the chance, but sadly for me, the BBC text adventure games that were the be all and end all of 80s and early 90s computer lessons are now technologically beyond a joke. How much better was MC and the Lost Frog than the bam bam you're dead stuff children play today? Tons, if you ask me.

Bod, Pigeon Street, Bagpuss, The Flumps, Henry's Cat, Knightmare, Bad Boyes, We are the Champions (oh how I wanted to be on it and dive in the pool at the end)...oh, this list could go on for pages.
Bring them back for the grown-up generation! (Though when I did manage to watch an old episode of The Flumps a few years ago, I was very disappointed. Bagpuss is still good when you're grown -up though.)




That's actually it for now, but sure more things will pop into my head later!