Not really shattered illusions, more lies told by your parent/s.

My dad told me that Pneumonia (pronouncing the P) was twice as serious as pneumonia ( silent p). I believed him until I was about 18!

My mother told me if I picked my nose my head would cave in. My young daughter had a really annoying habit of cracking her knuckles and I told her she would get arthritis. She stopped. Then we had to go to the doctors about something and she asked him (little minx) and of course he said it was perfectly safe even though I was trying to signal him behind her head, in the way you do with that meaningful wide-eyed frantic shake of the head ....so she started again and still does it at 35....eeugh

Me too, NotTooOld. I was always waiting to see him come back with a puppy. Why could be not say he was going to toilet? ?

A friend of my Grandma's husband told me that he'd written the name of his son on a marrow seed so that the marrow would have his name on when it grew! I didn't realise for ages he must have scratched it on the growing marrow!

When I was about 12 dad told me he was taking Bailey the dog to live on a farm as he was poorly and needed open spaces to get better. It was when I was in my 50's mum told me that Bailey had been put to sleep as he had liver cancer. I think I believed because he was only 5.

Your dad sounds a bit of a card Daddima. How lovely.

Schools never used to serve vinegar with meals in the 50s and I was told it was because vinegar dries the blood. Except we had vinegar at home and I used to use it loads and my blood stayed runny.

My dad was an engineer and scientist so always explained things (often at mind-numbing great length) if we asked a question. I asked him, as we were travelling in the car, what the 'road liable to subsidence' warning sign at the side of the road meant and he explained it meant that the road might sink due to mine works below. I was petrified for years that the road would suddenly sink and swallow us up but I never asked for reassurance!

And something grownups used to say that wasn't a lie but was a bit of a scam nonetheless. If you wanted them to get out of their chair and play with you they'd say "I can't, I've got a bone in my leg" leaving kids thinking that having a skeleton to hold you upright was some dreadful affliction!

As a child, I used to love my dad playing with my hair. He pretended it was the jungle and he was searching for wild animals when, in reality looking back now, I think he was probably looking for nits!!!

I've just remembered being told that touching raw bacon (I think) would give us warts, as well as what somebody else said about orange pith giving us worms.

What a trip down memory lane!

I remember reading The News Of the World in secret and being puzzles by what a G String was, I had some really funny looks from people depending on who I asked, think it was my older sister who told me it was a very scanty pair of knickers, remember thinking this was too tame an answer so never believed her.

Yes, ReadyMeals, that’s just what my Dad used to say!?

It took me a long time to realise we all had bones in our legs!!! ?

Covert NOTW reader here, too, muddy - I remember puzzling over the fact that telephonists were written about so critically. Didn't realise that call girls were not the same thing at all!!

If I wanted to play a rough and tumble game with my Dad when I was little and he didn't feel like it he used to say "no I can't, I've got a bone in my leg".

Sorry, just seen someone else used to get the same answer .

My mum always told me that touching egg shells would give you warts.
If you did get warts, your mother would take you on the ‘bus to the next village where an old lady called ‘Mother Morris’ would charm the warts away.
I can remember being terrified when my mother dragged me to see her (must’ve been around 1950), but the old lady was delightful and for her 2/6d fee, not only did she charm my warts, but gave us both tea and delicious home made sponge cake!
Strangely enough my warts disappeared, tho’ I daresay they would have gone anyway

I was told eating apple pips would cause appendicitis. I used to picture what if I swallowed one and a perfect little apple tree grew in my tummy. There was another one about swallowing chewing and bubble gum, but I think I may actually have told my children that too , and the one about sitting in a draft with wet hair, the whole house was drafty!, before I got a hairdryer as a teenager used to sit in front of open fire, I can't remember how it dried in the summer, just towel dried I suppose.

Apparently if you play with your belly button, your bum will fall off

I shall bear that in mind!

“”Jonnie has gone for a soldier” - just ask Google - the f.... of all knowledge and there are a few explanations there - gmelon - It seems to have multiple meanings!

Father told us about his own father who loved tongue. He discouraged his children from eating it as "cows don't clean their teeth"!
On the whole, they told us the truth and explained things to us [as I have done with my own DCs and DGCs], apart from the tooth fairy and FC of course. Life wouldnt' have been as exciting withouth them, surely!

Did anyone else's mother have 'eyes in the back of her head' because mine certainly did!
And I wish I'd never eaten all those crusts because I would like my hair to be straight not the jumbly mess that it is now.

ReadyMeals DH thinks he has a 'bone in his leg' but DGD scornfully informed him 'no, you haven't' when she was about 2.

DH told DD3 at age 6 that camel had a silent p at the beginning. Luckily when she used it in school, and had to explain, her teacher who knew us all very well, saw the funny side but DD3 (now 38) has never forgotten!