What do you remember from your childhood that you now realise you really misunderstood?

A few of you have unlocked a memory. My Mum is mixed race and is fairly dark skinned. She has adopted sisters whose skin is a lot darker than my Mum. When I was little I was convinced that they just had a really good tan and under their swimming costume they would have the same colour skin as my Mum! My auntie had to show me that she is in fact the same colour all over! 🤦🏻‍♀️

I had a boyfriend in my early twenties (he was the same age as me) who thought that all babies were born by the mother having her stomach and/or nether regions cut open. When I told him what actually happened, he didn't believe me. I distinctly remember him telling me that I must have got it wrong, because how would a baby fit through there?! He told me that he and his friend had discussed it and didn't know what happened, so had both kind of assumed that that's how all babies must come out. He hadn't heard of caesarean sections, so he wasn't even getting confused with those. It still surprises me to this day when I think of it!

Thank you so at the grand old age of 59 , I have only realised this now you point i5 out! I am a bit behind the times

Until I actually read the book it was ‘Alison Wonderland’ in my head.

As compared to the perfectly lovely reality of them emerging slowly and painfully from your fanny?!

I think I prefer the stomach eruption!

I was born in the 50's. Catholic upbringing, sex was never, ever discussed.
So I knew nothing other than what tiny bits of info I heard from other kids.
I totally believed that when babies were born, they erupted out of your tummy and your skin was torn and had to be sewn up.
It left me absolutely terrified of childbirth for many years.

Lots of hymns and carols have always reimagined Biblical events in a kind of imaginary space which isn’t quite Middle Eastern, may be European or sort-of-European, or some kind of fantasy or allegorical mingling of the two.

I quite like it; it’s as if the Europeanised version of Bible stories takes place in a rather fantastical place. Something similar happens in spirituals, where the Biblical stories and the American south become part of the same imaginary landscape.

I mean the words are not related linguistically.
But of course politically they denote the same group.

That's not quite right I think.
Tory comes from an old Irish word meaning something like vagabond. Conservative was a kind of re branding in the mid 19th century.

That is actually quite a sensible assumption.
Not only because it is an abbreviation of the word but also because I wager the majority of people who do have conservatories do tend to vote tory.
Imagine the pollsters questions...

Gold lamé banquette, surely?!

This puzzled me until I re read it and realised you were not aged 41 at the time.

That was bad enough.
Imagine if your father had taken you.

Don't. Too late.
You've given someone a business idea. . .
Just imagine the spin offs.
Could revive the high street
With specialist outfitters.
Of dark sombre clothes.
Could double up for funeral wear.
And then there's the videographers and caterers venues etc.

I was also confused with phone numbers advertised on TV, which noted beneath that before we call we should 'check with Bill Payer'.

Who was Bill and why did we need to check with him?

Which leads us to the question - what is the furniture of the angels?

Writing desk? Feather beds? Halo stand?

Oh my god, I LOVE this.

The ineffable needs to get out more, it's too good a word to hide away just for the use of bishops.

Where did you grow up that doesn't have scary nursery rhymes and fairy stories?

They're all gruesome. Gold-egg-laying geese being sliced open. Babies falling out of trees. Old men snoring in bed and young men fetching water both getting concusssion. Shards of ice embedded in hearts and eyes. Orphan match sellers freezing to death. Red Riding hood and her grandmother eaten by a wolf, and then the wolf chopped open. Hansel and Gretel abandoned by their father and would have been cooked by the witch if they'd not cooked her first. Hedgehogs and bulls having their skins peeled off and thrown on the fire. Baba Yaga chasing people in her pestle and mortar. That one with the 3 brothers, 2 of whom get drowned in molten gold. Nine-tailed foxes eating people. Red hot iron shoes. Stolen voices.

Traditional stories for children are all nightmare fodder.

the thunder we were always told that it was God moving furniture around. made sense as mum always moved her furniture around!

Me too!

I thought it was Dan too!!

As a typical young child, I always wondered where babies came from and then one evening when my parents were driving home I was sitting in the back of the car and leaned forward to speak to my mum (this was before seatbelts were compulsory) and noticed her cleavage and wondered where it led to. I had a sudden revelation and was convinced that it led to a stash of babies and that they were born up through women's cleavages. I remember being beside myself at the excitement of discovering the mystery of childbirth and told all my friends at school.

I think it's a real shame that a show like Jim'll Fix It will now never be made again - at least not in the living memory of those of us whose lives overlapped with Savile's.

It's a fantastic, simple-but-exciting idea that children will naturally love - and one that would still work brilliantly if hosted by somebody who wasn't an evil paedophile.

It would be a guaranteed hit if done by the equivalent in two or three generations' time of Ant & Dec, Mel & Sue, Colin Murray or Claudia Winkleman.

I used to think that the building society I went and paid money into with my parents had little safe’s with your name on and you got your actual money back. It blew my mind when I found out that wasn’t the case.