What would surprise your friends?

When the Olympics were in London in 2012 my mum disclosed that she had been to the 1948 ones and had seen Fanny Blankers-koen running. Obviously there was no problem getting tickets then!

I believe you AnnieGran, I have a similar story of my own, even today 20 years down the line, my sisters still don't believe me and mix socially with him and wonder why I stay away. After all he's such a nice chap.

Annie, how brave you were to escape. Perhaps now IS the time - especially with the "Helen Archer" effect!
I sincerely hope that your poor children weren't too scarred by the experience, and you have all come through this happy and well-balanced.

You should talk about it Annie you experiences could help someone else, either by warning them, helping to see they are not alone or getting them to also open up. You are very brave to have dealt with it and survived the experience.

What would surprise my friends?
I generally don't talk about the time I was married to a genuine psychopath. I was a fairly wealthy but vulnerable widowed mother aged 30 when we met. I escaped with my children after four years, with our physical, if not mental health intact, our money and home all gone. I had secretly found a small flat over a shop and moved things over, a little at a time. The night we left he tried to smash down the outside door to the flat to get at us. My children clung to each other and cried with fear. The landlord assumed it must have been my fault because J was such a nice man.

I mentioned it recently, for the first time ever outside the family, at a small gathering of women friends, and there was a silence. Someone changed the subject and a different conversation started. They are nice people, I expect they didn't know what to say, or perhaps they didn't believe me - just like the police, at the time, my solicitor, my friends, and my parents at first.

Psychopaths are charming, believable. Strangely, his sister was the only person who befriended me then. She was not surprised. He later, I heard, quickly married another young woman with children and her own house and money.

Now, after 40 years, I actually feel ready to talk about it but have been put off a bit. Perhaps it's just too gothic for social chit chat. Wrong time, wrong subject.

My friend and I were rockers until we left school and could afford new clothes we became mods haha!?

It surprises people when I tell them I play guitar and sing in folk clubs. I don't know why they should be surprised - it's quite common up here in Scotland. I also camp out at folk festivals during the summer months, and it's great to get together with friends from all over the country and have a bumper music session. It's my main relaxation, and relieves all my stress.

There are many things about me that would surprise my friends , but I'm not telling.
What would shock (and probably delight) them is hearing me swear.

I did a tandem skydive from 13,000ft for my 50th birthday, and also did white water rafting in New Zealand. I would love to do Wing walking as well. I have also survived Breast Cancer which makes you realise how tenuous life can be. Don't regret the things you've done, regret the things you don't do!!

Bethanmp. Write it all down. Would make a great book.

Wow some amazing memories but bethanmp23 Wow you should write a book about your adventures
How wonderful to have had such an adventure and survived
What a relatively boring life I've led X

Oh yes forgot to say i still have the badge to prove it!!!

i once completed the London to Brighton bike ride on my old pushbike with a basket on the front and a child's seat on the back!!!! lol

Well I was almost arrested for soliciting late one night at Victoria Station when I was 16.
Long story & I had no idea whatever what soliciting was but as I was standing there a long time & was wearing a pelmet rather than a skirt & had a small suitcase with me I can see why I looked dodgy.
The policemen were very sweet when they discovered I was actually a damsel in distress & took me into station master's room & gave me tea & a bun while we waited for my Dad to come & get me. It was all due to a mini cab that didn't turn up & I had no money left having been on a train that was delayed several hours outside London & missed last train home but I don't mention that until I see the shocked faces!!

Wow, what an amazing life. Bethanmp!
Feel like I haven't lived compared with you! Sorry to hear about your health problems now though.

I went round the world for a year, 1979-80, and talked my way out of two attempted rapes and three being 'held at gunpoint' moments, saved the people in my carriage from having all their belongings stolen on a train in Pakistan, survived a landslide, survived dysentery, attended a wedding between the daughter of the goldsmith and the son of the diamond buyer/ cutter in Rangoon, picked up a huge amethyst on a walk in India, rode on an elephant [but didn't see any tigers] on a tiger hunt.
I also rode a camel [Egypt] and took part in white water rafting in New Zealand. Neither were meant to be life-threatening, but they were very narrow escapes when the camel bolted and the boat overturned. I was also almost on a coach where five people were shot dead. Luckily I refused to get the Afghanistan visa, and hitched a ride across a desert on the back of a truck instead, because the embassy wouldn't give me change from my ten dollar note!
I was shy before I went, but nothing frightens me now - and I have performed on the piano in front of 2, 500 people, also given talks to many people.
Seeing me now - confined to a wheelchair because of progressive MS, heart problems and osteoarthritis - I doubt many people would guess at my past!

Would be funny if someone came on and said they used to be a ''swinger'' that would really surprise their friends !
My life has been a bit boring, no surprises!

When people get talking to me they often say how nice I am not a bit how they have pursieved me. Not sure if that's a good thing ha ha

Few apart from very old friends know I rang peals on church bells as a hobby. Hardest thing to explain is that I went to a boys' school, (none of this transgender stuff, I just happened to be a girl at a boys' school). It made applying for uni a tricky time.

My friends (and relatives) would be amazed to find that I am actually quite a soft hearted person as my sarcastic exterior and my 'small c' conservative and traditionalist views seem to entitle them to view me as belonging to 'the dark side.'

A few years ago we went on a caravan club holiday to the Netherlands with about a dozen other families, including my son and DIL, and one couple who I have known since schooldays. One day we were all visiting Amsterdam when we caught the distinctive smell of marijuana coming from one of the cafes. And the friend who I had known for 50 years whispered to me "That smells like good stuff - not like the rubbish we used to smoke!".

Unfortunately, he didn't whisper quietly enough, and my son (then aged 30) who ws walking a few paces behind overheard. The look on his face was priceless !

Wee I don't have a large friend circle but my extended family might be shocked that I was taken under the wings of our local Hells Angels when I was a rocker with a motorbike ( moped) as a teenager
They warned my now DH off saying he was a bad influence ( he had a bike but was never a biker !)
Gosh what fun we had

Nanaandgrampy I'm in awe of you!
Do you know James (Bond)

Friends know we ride our motorcycle round northern spain etc (so do a lot of our friends). So that doesn't count
I have a while back done some abseiling.
In on New years day(2011) swam across the local bit of river Trent for Help the heros. ( But friends sponsered me. New friends since wouldn't know though)

I think most of us have innermost thoughts that would surprise our friends. I was surprised by my Mother a couple of weeks ago, she lives in a nursing home and they publish a newsletter once a month and feature one of the residents each month. Last month it was Mum and one of the things she told them was that as a 16 year old she had driven a motor bike!! I didn't know that but I do remember the hard time she and Dad gave me when I was going out with a "rocker" (anyone remember them!)

Alea its ok - those weapons aren't available to me now ....but I do wield a mean rolling pin