Greatest misunderstandings/di sappointments as a child

I have no problem thinking of my biggest disappointment as a child. When I was thirteen and at grammar school I yearned for a decent fountain pen instead of the school issued biro and my mother promised to buy me one as my main Christmas present. I was sooo excited.
On Christmas eve my stepfather came home from the pub and in a drunken rage threw it on the fire because it had been put on the windowsill (my mum had hidden it behind the curtain). My mother risked burning her hand to try to retrieve it, but couldn't. I think my stepfather was a bit ashamed on Christmas day when I had no present to open, but the pen was never replaced.

That's really sad grannyactivist.

Oh that's awful.

Eloethan I remember that as a 4 year old child! A great trip from Wimbledon into London and I overheard my mum and grandma discussing if Picadilly Circus or Oxford Circus was the best. I was sooo excited... in fact we went to the sales and I had to drag round the shops with no entertainment at all..never mind a circus!

I remember being taken to a fair when I was about seven. It was quite a long drive so I kept my little brother entertained by chattering about helter-skelters and roundabouts. When we got there it was morris dancers and apple bobbing.

I can only have been abut three when my father said he was "going to see a man about a dog." I remember being delirious with joy, and pestering him to tell me what sort of dog etc. etc. He wimped out and left it to my mother to explain, and I was so sad!

Ariadne that was what my dad used to say meant he was going pub!

Oh god that's awful Granny activist
My biggest dissapointment was saving up for a sindy doll my parents were hard up dad drunk lots his wages and went to shop they were out stock! I never got one!
Never forgotten it my friends ll has them and the clothes!
Our loft is full of my daughters old ones too painful to sort.

I think I was about seven years old. My Aunt took me to see a play,'' Where the Rainbow Ends'' It was about a family of children and one of the stars was St George played by Anton Dolin. He looked a real hero on the stage. After the show there was a collection for a children's charity and Anton Dolin stood at the exit with a collecting tin. I can still remember my disappointment to this day! He was really very small (not surprising as he was a ballet dancer), his costume was decidedly the worse for wear and his face was covered in makeup!! What a let down. Definitely not a knight in shining armour.

grannyactivist that's very .

My greatest disappointment as a child was my "father". Once we all got over the shock of him running off leaving, we had a very happy life with my single parent mother and we were taken into my grandparents' hearts and home, after which our lives were filled with .

The local Lions Club runs a charity shop near me and I sometimes go in to see if they have any toys or books. I told my little grandson that we were going to the "Lions Shop" and he was most upset to find they didn't have any real lions for sale.

My older brother used to promise me all kinds of lovely things "when my ship comes in". As he was in the merchant navy, I actually believed he had a ship of his own, but needless to say it never did arrive.

As a "war baby", people were always saying "wait till you taste a banana".
When the great day came I was so disappointed - I thought it would be juicy!

My biggest disappointment was when mum told me the facts of life, and it transpired that sharon mcneish had been right all along..I thought she must have made it up , it all sounded very implausible and a messy business I wanted no truck with......as I have 3 children I must have changed my mind some where along the line !

Great disappointment when my mum took me to one side with a very serious look on her face to tell me something she felt I should know. It was that my dad had been married and divorced before he married my mum. I thought she was going to tell me I was adopted. I'd always hoped that I was adopted [or a changeling].

I always wanted a doll's house. My parents decided that the politically correct way to do it was to buy me a big Bettabilda set to build my own, but when I opened the box there were only bricks - none of the accessories such as roof, windows or door, all of which were illustrated on the box, were enclosed. Also there were very few bricks, I think I had enough for half a house.

Those were the days. You could open a large box of chocolates and find it was all box and nine chocolates in the middle.

Anyway, they promised me that they would track down the other components in time for the next birthday. Bettabilda went bust. I never did have a doll's house.

I was very little and Princess Margaret was coming to our area.
I was told I was going to see a real princess. My imagination went into overdrive and I thought she would have a crown, a magic wand, maybe wings and certainly a pretty long dress in pink.
The car swept by and all I saw was a woman in a brown coat waving to the crowd.
I was bitterly disappointed. Not my idea of what a princess looked like.
I remember it so vividly.

I went on my first school trip when I was 13, the first time I had spent a night away from home (we didn't have holidays). We went to Oxford, and Whipsnade Zoo, and looked at all the sights of London. We didn't go into St. Paul's or Westminster Abbey because they were 'non-Catholic' but we looked at the outside.
All the way home on the coach I was planning how I would regale my family with all the details of my trip. Nobody showed any interest, not even my mother. That is nearly 60 years ago and I still remember the feeling of total deflation.

Oh Greatnan, that is so sad on all sorts of levels, it made tears come into my eyes.

I know this is about disappointments - I'll share mine in a minute, but the contrast between my father and yours is a world apart. He would have loved to have had you as a daughter. I remember going with him to London to visit my Auntie and going to the Abbey, two Wren churches and then Mass at Farm Street! Too many churches for me at that age. And, I had to be able to name the architectural style of every window; Norman, Early English and so on. (I can do this without blinking now.)

But my biggest disappointment was when I was about nine. My parents told me that we were going to have a holiday in a caravan. Now we had been learning in lessons about the caravans which brought the spices across the plains to the western world and I spent months dreaming about camels and deserts and spices. The reality of a cheap caravan in Wales was totally devastating.

Thank you, Micelf. In fact, my mother was normally very warm and loving - perhaps she just had a lot on her mind that day.
It is fascinating to find out how children interpret the words we use without thinking. I used to think of bowls of fruit whenever we said the Hail Mary - of course the nuns did not tell us the meaning!
Your father sounds wonderful - what a good job he did with you!

And you must have said

Thanks Peter God

I always thought that was his name!

My mother, my aunt and my older cousins were all excellent hockey players and had talked it up so much that I was really looking forward to playing it when I moved into the secondary department of my school. They (and I) must have overlooked the fact that I wasn't a very athletic child and when I discovered that almost everyone in the class was better at hockey than I was, I was so disappointed and felt like a family failure. Nevertheless, I did enjoy playing and eventually reached the dizzy heights of the second XI. The disappointment then was that my arch enemy was made captain of it. The torch passed to the next generation and I spent many hours on the sidelines watching DS2 who played under-16 for the county.

My biggest disappointments, the ones that made me weep, were not for myself but my grandson, when he has tried for job after job and not been chosen, although he always gets told he was a strong candidate. He worked so hard for his MSc but it seems he chose a subject that was just too popular - marine biology. I used to drive him for interviews all over the country. I am no longer in contact with him, but his sister would tell me if he got a job. It is the same old story - you need experience, but how do you get it if nobody will give you a job? He did voluntary work for three months in Tanzania, monitoring the effect of the tsunami on the reef, and helping to dig wells, and he has every possible diving qualification and has worked as a dive instructor.

Being taken to a field at 7 years old somewhere near Battle, outside Hastings where apparently the 1066 skirmish took place and finding it was just a field, nothing there, no blood, no armour, swords, axes, bits of bodies,(didn't know about decomposition then!) in fact bugger all unless you count grass! My father was a history buff we frequently did this sort of thing every castle or abbey we went anywhere near had to be visited. All ruins look the same when you are a kid! I think I used to mutter under my breath " call this a holiday, why can't we go to Butlins like normal people?"