To ask about the end of innocence for you?

I don't remember exactly when I realised the world wasn't all roses, but I think it was probably in the middle years of primary school, and definitely by the start of high school.

I don't remember many disasters that happened during my childhood and was oblivious. Watching the Pan Am series, I don't remember that happening. At the time I was at Primary. I remember something about 'acid rain' being mentioned as a young child, I think that was the Chenobyl disaster but I didn't know of the disaster itself at the time.

The first real disaster I recall being aware of at the time was probably Hillsborough.

Dunblane for me too. We started having practices of what to do in a similar situation in my primary school.

Jamie Bulger was also shocking, I was about a year younger than his murderers.

Oh and my dad's best mate biting a man's nose off when we were in Morocco doing a drug deal (I mean not me, I was 4) and he thought the guy was being too vocal and disrupting the deal but that was a first introduction into how harsh people can be!

If anyone is interested he's a main player in the Diamond Heist on Netflix

I obviously knew about all the awful things in the world but still felt like we were in a “that would never happen to us” bubble until it did. A friend died of meningitis when we were 17. We’d not long started sixth year at high school and much of the rest of that year felt like a blur. One of the worst parts was going into the local shop the next day and her face was on the front page of all the newspapers. Our school then had more tragedy just a few months later when a first year boy died after an asthma attack.

I did go off the rails a bit after my friend died and then less than two years later a male friend I had a crush on also died (cancer related) just after his 18th birthday. I dropped out of uni and was just a total mess for quite a long time after that. Tbh I’m in my 40s now and I think I’m still affected by those times.

When I was 11,.Myra Hindley's.repulsive face was all over the newspapers along with Brady's. Until those two appeared I had no idea that adults could be so cruel to children. It was the first time I realised that there really is evil in the world.

I was 13. It was Boxing Day. My godfather, who was in his 70s, suggested a walk. No one else wanted to go, but I was going skiing soon and was aware that I wasn't really that fit so agreed. We went to the local park and after a long walk he asked me if I really wanted to go for a walk to get fit or was it because I liked him. I was completely shocked and stuttered it was because I wanted to get fit but he pulled me into a nearby bush and tried to kiss me. There were a couple of lads nearby on bikes who'd seen it happen and came cycling over and asked if I was ok. Thank fuck for them. God knows what would have happened if they hadn't come over. I wish I could thank them for being so brave, they could have just turned a blind eye.

For me it was a friend in my class when I was 6 - Alice. She died in a car crash on Christmas Eve caused by a drunk driver along with her brother and both her parents. They were on their way home after visiting grandparents. I remember our neighbour coming round and telling my mum in our kitchen. I just remember all the colour draining from my mum's face and the look of shock and horror. I couldn't quite comprehend the enormity but I remember feeling something shift inside me. Hard to explain but it was like getting a glimpse into a world that I knew I shouldn't really be seeing.

Never did. Grew up in Northern Ireland during The Troubles.

My brother died when I was 3 and my dad was pretty awful to me even at that age, so I think as long as I can remember I never had a "sunshine and rainbows" childhood. I remember coming home from school when I was 6 and seeing the rolling coverage of the twin towers. I also remember 7/7 happening when I was 10 and being scared because of how close to home it felt.

Princess Diana and Twin towers, just remember as a young teen watching tv glued and finding it hard to believe I wasn't watching a horror film

I never thought the world was all rainbows and unicorns.

I learnt from a very young age that there are evil people out there and that shit things happen. I experienced it from a very young age.

I am envious but genuinely happy for the people who experienced some years of 'innocence'.

Hearing about the killing of Damilola Taylor on the news. I remember hearing that he'd been stabbed in the leg with a bottle and that they had twisted it. I asked my dad why they'd twisted it and my dad said, 'so it wouldn't heal'. I couldn't wrap my head around why or how someone could do something so deliberately awful.

I'd been aware of bad things happening before then, and I'd been through some quite difficult things myself, but I always excused other people's behaviour - he must not understand that what he's doing is hurting me, they must be mentally unwell, etc. That was the first time I understood that some behaviour and some people were just deliberately cruel.

This made me cry for the little three year old you. I am so sorry that happened.

I grew up with a disability and was bullied. It has never been sunshine and rainbows.

But since the war in Ukraine and in Gaza... it's the instability that gets me. And the dead children. Terrifying what humans will do to each other.

I don't think I ever had this innocence as was exposed to and experienced darkness from very young. I did however block it out and deny the reality of it all until recently, on a conscious level at least.

So I've always known of the capacity for hurt, cruelty, suffering and unfairness, I just didn't accept it consciously.

More recently I have read and watched programmes that are significantly worse than my experience and horrify me even more. That has unwrapped another layer of any innocence or perhaps naiveté. I think more recently of the ' dancing boys of Afghanistan ' I watched and think, jesus fucking wept. The capacity for darkness is on a scale even greater than I knew and experienced.

The innocence of so many girls is stolen by disgusting men. I don't know if it will ever stop, but it makes me so angry that in 2025 it is just accepted that 1 in 6 girls will be sexually abused. Anyone that argues that the world is set up for protecting men, just has to look at sexual abuse and rape stats+convictions. Men hurt boys too (1 in 20), but overwlmingly it is little girls and then we grow into women who receive more of the same.

And those stats are considered to be underreported by around 50%, which means it could easily be 1 in 3 girls.

I know so many women with the same story.

I was 7. After that I knew evil

Lockerbie.

I think I was always aware that the world was a pretty shit place.

But on a personal level: A relative dying of alcoholism; My best friend turning on me for no reason; Divorcing a man who had been my friend since I was a teenager.

A horrible girl in my class when I was 7 made me worried to go to school. She was so awful to me even at that age. Thankfully she left my school and I never had to see her again.

I’m so sorry 🩷

The tragic death of a classmate aged 11. I will never forget the moment I was ushered inside by the Headmaster to a room of my sobbing, brokenhearted friends. 25 years on and that date never goes unnoticed

I grew up in Belfast in the 80s and 90s I had a pretty normal loving family upbringing with the background of breakfast news reporting the latest bomb and gone off or shooting while I ate my cereal. Been evacuated many times and heard gun shots and the panicked aftermath.
I became aware that was not normal at maybe 8 when talking to other kids while I was on holiday. They were fascinated I lived in scary Belfast. As a teen travelling with school in England were confronted by another group of teens calling us horrific names and spewing vitriol when they heard out accents, that was a real shock to the system.

Oh my god. I'm so sorry you experienced that

Learning about the atomic bombs of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, at around age 11. My mind could not compute that such horrors could be possible. I think it created a shift in me that influenced the rest of my life, it's hard to explain the shift but I think I had a massive sense of 'if this can happen in normal society then I do not relate to this normal society '.

I was 11, and a little boy we knew was diagnosed with leukaemia. He was 3, and the cleverest little kid. Obsessed with cars. He knew all the parts of a car and what they all did. His parents let him choose how their car was painted - so all the doors were different colours. They let him choose the colours for the house - so they had a brightly coloured patchwork house with a purple door and red windowsills.

He died when he was 3 and a half, in 1988.

I still think about him all the time. Sweet little boy.

I think this magical time of innocence is a myth. I had deep foreboding about many things from about age 6.

If you grew up blissfully happy until even mid teens, you are exceptionally lucky and highly unusual: most people’s lives are an emotional mixed bag.

Plus, I do think children should not be totally insulated from hardship. They need to see the bad stuff to live good lives. Within reason.

Growing up cosseted is never going to end well, because eventually the scales will fall, and then what??