Shattered illusions when you were very little?

My Dad convinced me that the TV had to be emptied of Indians on a Sunday morning, after we had watched Saturday evening Western. I was so so gullible

We were staying the night in a cheap hotel in Brussels when I was 7. Outside the window I could see loads of women, dressed in very little, standing on the pavement. Now and again one of them would get into a car.

My story of "What I did on my holidays" back at school included the bit about how ladies in Brussels worked very hard and very late, and had to stand around at the bus-stop for hours, hoping someone would give them a lift home.

I also had a great auntie who my grandma called "Mrs Nippy" I never understood why until years later I confronted my grandma and asked her why. She said "oh she was a barmaid and always walked around with her boobs out and her bum cheeks nipped in". Charming.

I used to believe that your poo was stored in your bum cheeks and people with huge bums must've hardly ever went to the toilet.

I idolised my mums younger sister she always smelled so nice and wore makeup. I overheard her talking to my mother one day saying ' musn't forget my evening in Paris.'
I was a' little girls should be seen and not heard' so as you may have guessed it took me some time to find out my aunt had not been to Paris.

I was very excited one day because my parents were taking me to - Worlds End!
I imagined it as the edge where we could maybe fall off..... and it turned out to be an ordinary field with a hedge at the bottom. What a disappointment.

Does anybody remember Amami?
My poor dear Scottish granny had thin grey hair which she wore on a sort of roll around the back of her head/neck and I remember her telling my mum how she combed Amami through her hair after she washed it in the expectation of the lovely waves illustrated on the box

Reception pupils get very excited if they see teacher in the street because they think they live in the school

All those road signs saying "cul-de-sac, not on housing estates but proper rural roads, I wondered how so many signs in different areas all went to the same place. Now all you get is the sign with a vertical white line & horizontal red line on top, not the same at all. Bit disappointed that cul-de-sac meant a road that didn't go anywhere

Also my mum told me my tummy button was where I'd been attached to her inside her tummy. As she also had a tummy button I thought they had fitted together like a press stud.

Oh, Margaret , hymns caused endless confusion. Like 'Gladly' my cross-s eyed bear. Why did she call
her bear Gladly if it was cross-eyed'?

I was a lot older - about 11 when we moved house. My parents said they needed to buy turf to lay a new lawn. I came home from school very excited one day and announced to my parents and a room full of visitors that I'd found somewhere they could get some. I'd seen a sign saying Turf Accountants. I was mortified when they all laughed.

Going to church with my mum and singing “ oe’r moor and fen, and crag and torrent till the night be gone”. I asked what a Torrentill looked like, was it like a scarlet pimpernel? She laughed all the way home.

I firmly believed Mums laid an egg and had to stay in bed to hatch the baby out. I used to go and feed the hens with a neighbour so knew that's what they did and it seemed logical to me that must be how babies were born.

I also very proudly told my reception class at school aged 4 that my Daddy had discovered rice pudding in Africa. That was because he was in the army and stationed there after the war and used to send tea chests full of provision home periodically including a sack of rice. I was very puzzled when the teacher burst out laughing!

I remember asking my mum how babies were born and her coy reply was something along the lines of "first the head appears then the shoulders" etc etc but as she didn't exactly say where the head appeared from I imagined her sitting up in a hospital bed with her best peach bedjacket on and her arms lovingly circled then, out of nowhere, a lovely little head materialised (a bit like the Cheshire cat now I think of it) followed by the shoulders etc etc! Needless to say, when I found out where babies ACTUALLY came from it was less of a disappointment more a traumatic event lol!

Perhaps the answer then should have been because I zed Bridgeit.

My daughter used to stand in front of the tv to show Tony Hart her paintings! I used to think there was a man called Ed in all my comics. I didn't know it was short for editor.

I hated my first school, and my mother had literally to drag me kicking and screaming. When I asked why I had got to go to school, she told me it was because the goverment said I had to. It was at least several months before I realised that my headmaster was not in fact the government. (I did in fact have a change of school a short time later.)

Love Davy Crockett with the wild front ear! ? Priceless, still chuckling
For me it was that penny drop moment when I finally realised that there were no fairies in the garden. I had diligently sought them under leaves and flowers but never found even one tiny fairy. I could picture them so clearly. I think I was about 5.
My version of that troublesome chap "Bill Stickers" was the posters on building sites saying "Post No Bills". I thought those people had found a miraculous way to never pay accounts. And my first two friends at primary school were called Prune and Lonely, definitely not Prue and Leonie as others tried to suggest.

Like those who wondered where the people were in the wireless, I wondered how the people got into the television. I remember wondering who Bill Stickers was as well.

Oh my, this is bringing back so many memories. The first circus I went to featured Davy Crockett of the Wild Frontier. Sadly For me Davy when he appeared had only the standard two ears either side of his head and not a wild one in the middle! Gutted!

Witzend that used to puzzle me too!
On the subject of ‘why’, DH always tells DGS ‘because y has a curly tail”.

I was always taught not to speak to strangers, so imagine how confused I was when aged 6, my mother on meeting their bank manager in the street, instructed me to say Good afternoon Mr ?. I stoutly refused not once but twice!! Afterwards , having been reprimanded for being rude, I explained that she had always told me not to speak to strangers!!! Apparently, there were strangers, and strangers!!!

Not exactly a shattered illusion, but I often wondered why it said 'Dilute to taste' on bottles of squash. Surely you could taste it perfectly well without diluting it? In fact, it would surely taste a lot stronger without a load of water?