When we lived in Glen Waverley in the 1970s, my mum Helene was a Tupperware dealer. By night, she’d head off in a suede midi skirt for buzzing Tupperware parties in suburban homes, and by day she’d rope in my brother and me to be part of the empire.

Pre-schoolers, we’d help Mum pack orders (“two Shape O Balls please, and there should be a Jifi Sifter somewhere”) then drive around suburbia in the maroon Datsun 180B to drop them off. Sammy and I could have spruiked the products on street corners if need be. We knew our Tupperware.

One fantastic day, we pulled up at Tupperware HQ and Mum’s name was up in lights as dealer of the month. Even then, to a little girl it had an air of glamour about it. Which I now recognise was probably empowerment, independence and social connection. At a time when many women were homemakers with limited career opportunities, Tupperware let them earn money, build a small business and network.

Five decades on, Helene still has plenty of the original products. Open her pantry, and you’ll find a square container loaded with a pumpkin fruit cake, rice and flour in their dedicated storers, some with fantastic old labels. The 1980s square containers with the “pop” lids.

Your parents’ family home might be the same. A living museum for iconic plastic products which have not just stood the test of time but are unlikely vehicles for taking you back in time to a place called the Good Old Days.

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You see old Tupperware and think reliably hot summers. Riding dragsters and wearing scratch’n’sniff T-shirts, hoping Mull of Kintyre wasn’t No. 1 on Countdown for the millionth week. Making ashtrays out of Das modelling clay and aping “whistling” garden guru Allan Seale’s telly ads, when he’d blast roses with Mortein House and Garden to get rid of aphids, lace bug, even caterpillars.

So the news that Tupperware has filed for bankruptcy after years of falling popularity was an instant trip down nostalgia street. Yes, another one, almost a year after the death of Mark Goddard, aka Major Don West in Lost in Space, had me awash with memories of apricot chicken, Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp, splayds and Hobbytex.

At that time, I was looking for nostalgia as a makeshift balm for general ennui and the reality of current global horrors. Wondering if people can derive happiness and wisdom from the past while cultivating hope for the future.