nay, Mr. Wilks!
(btw, a good question and the answer/recollection of which goes to show the lag of the UK behind the US in consumer technology and the modern socio-economy)
i was born in '71 and got into nappies at around age 7. the first i remember of dispies being a thing was in around 1982 (no details, but that was the first time that i ever saw one); and througout the 80's, the issue of trads-versus-dispies, and with such a tellingness of good/bad motherhood, raged. when dispies overtook trads is possibly a bit murky, but i remember a late 80's breakfast tv spot about modern children's clothing and how such were cut (designed) for wearing over disposables as they were 'now' more commonly used than trads.
of course, with the 80's also spawning the rise of the teenage mum, who all (by all practical measure) opted for dispies, the death knell was sounding for trads. my former neighbour, being a tad older than many and married, used trads on her kids, in the late 80's and early 90's. i'm trying to remember, or at least slap a point in time down, but my sister had moved out and i'd then taken her bedroom as mine, and summers saw me awaking to the sight of square nappies on nextdoor's washing line. she was/is a bit of a dizzy bitch and would often leave them out overnight; naturally, with me suffering only the use of towels, the temptation was too great and i nabbed one (such 'suffering' being bit ironic in that i now claim that towels are so much better than any of the nappies available to buy, for child or adult). that must've been around 1990.
and it was certainly around 89/90 that i began to lament what i could see as the end of an era, for trad nappies and many other things. just a few years before, i had often been mightily jealous of some kid down the road who had been in nappies at night, and his nappies and plastic-pants were always out on the line; and they weren't no cheap plackies, like what i was used to: they were Mothercare, motherffffff....thingymajiggers (i got told off today for swearing, but feck 'em :biggrin
, with plush elastics!!!!!
the early 90's saw Mothercare begin to lessen it's range of trad stuff. i was sort of sad (especially as i never got around to buying those posh pants), but i had also outgrown the babywear (plastic-pants need to be puffy when worn or they'll rip). by the time of the MegaDrive (1990 or 91), i was regularly using dispies (ya, it's always been a gamer thing) (Cosifits and a local make, if you were wondering).
can't remember owt else, fer t' mo'.