There are certain objects that, upon viewing, immediately remind us of our wonderful 1980s childhood: whether it’s an expensive ornament, a piece of retro technology, a specific wallpaper pattern or a lovely smelling bathroom product, these memorable items transport us back to a time when we didn’t have a single care in the whole world.

So why don’t you use a SodaStream to make yourself some fizzy milk, wrap yourself up in a My Little Pony duvet, set the alarm on your Mr Men clock radio and join us as we jog your memory with 12 amazing household items that you’ve probably forgotten all about?


12. Dome clocks

A lovely looking fixture in many a 1980s living room, dome clocks were a mesmerising timepiece that, particularly if they had the rotating balls at the bottom, kept us amused for hours on end as we watched them ticking back and forth.

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11. Cartoon bedspreads

Whether yours was adorned with images of the Care Bears, ThunderCats, Rainbow Brite, He-Man or Snatch the Dog it didn’t matter, because our cartoon-covered childhood duvets always kept us extremely warm and cosy after our parents closed our bedroom curtains and settled us down for the night.

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10. Slide projectors

In a process that must seem like something out of the Stone Age to the youth of today, we did indeed view our family holiday snaps by inserting them into slots on a massive projector that would spin them round at the press of a button.

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9. Knitted toilet roll covers

Possibly because we couldn’t bear the sight of one in our bathroom, or perhaps because we wanted to keep them warm during the cold winter nights, it was essential that our spare 1980s toilet rolls were covered by a beautiful looking knitted lady.

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8. Cassette tape cabinets

Storing our favourite family VHS tapes (you know, the Star Wars and Superman films your parents recorded off ITV) as well as music cassettes required a great deal of space, so we were extremely grateful that a clever carpenter came up with some perfectly proportioned storage cabinets to keep them in.

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7. Blue Willow pottery

There were many styles, shapes and colours of kitchen crockery when we were growing up, but surely none were more memorable than the ones that bore the legendary and exotic Blue Willow pattern.

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6. Nest of tables

Perfect for families of four or more, a nice neat nest of tables meant that we and our siblings could consume our breakfast and possibly even lunch in front of the television, ensuring that we wouldn’t miss a single second of Wacaday on a Saturday morning.

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5. Electric typewriters

Some of us will be old enough to remember the old style metal Typewriters that were extremely fun to mess around with (until we broke them), but slightly more efficient were the dot matrix electric versions that appeared in the mid-1980s.

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4. Recipe boxes

These days the majority of our favourite recipes are to be found on the internet or within the pages of Jamie Oliver’s latest cookbook, but there was a time when our parents and grandparents wrote their tastiest dishes on pieces of card which they would later store within a handy, and often elaborately-decorated, wooden box.

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3. Frosted glass animals

Many of your childhood homes will have been covered from floor to ceiling with all manner of fragile ornaments, and a particular favourite of ours were the memorable frosted glass animals that our parents insisted on collecting.

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2. Clock radio coffee machines

Coffee machines have come a long way over the past few decades, but are any of the overly expensive devices you can buy today also able to tell the time and let you listen to the radio?

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1. Black and white TVs

Yes kids, there was a time when we were forced to watch our favourite cartoons on a tiny box that not only displayed everything in black and white, but also required that we turn a dial to tune into our favourite TV channel.

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