When I was a child, I believed

[ginandwineandbaileys]

That people grew and grew until death
That the oldest person in the country became monarch, and I just had to live long enough and I too would become Queen of England
That my baby sister was actually my doll that had come to life
That my dog could speak (she understood everything I said to her, and would have "conversations" with me, barking in response)
That I saw Santa traversing across the sky
That the nuns in my nursery were witches (I was not a catholic)
That soup is the best food in the world (still do)

That it was dangerous to walk through ferns/bracken because there would be loads of adders in there (still feel uneasy doing that...).

Being a child of the early 70s, I had some vague idea that there was a special occasion in Northern Ireland called "Jelly Night" (presumably "gelignite" [sp?]) when they let off fireworks. And, presumably, ate jelly.

Swallowing chewing gum would give you appendicitis.

Having cut my hand and been given a tetanus jab, I believed that cutting the webbing between your thumb and index finger could automatically make your jaw lock.

And I was nearly a teenager before I realised women had three openings, so was concerned about how babies could get out of the urethra which seemed quite small

I must have merged Planet of the Apes and the news about Guerilla warfare as I genuinely believed that some far flung countries had trained Gorilla’s to be soldiers and they could use machine guns! I found this both terrifying and sad for the Gorilla’s at the same time!

I had relatives who lived in Poole in Dorset. I honestly believed their house was in a swimming pool

When I was very young I asked my Mum why you have to scratch yourself when you have an itch. She said “Oh you have to or it’ll drive you mad”. I spent around the next 10 years of my life thinking that I would literally go mad if I didn’t scratch when I itched

I thought a lion slept under my bed and sea monsters swam in the water piping. Small monsters...
I also thought you shouldn't swallow pips in case plants grew inside you.

When I was learning the very basics of sex ed at school aged 11 ish, I assumed the man did a wee inside the woman to make a baby. I can remember thinking 'I'm NEVER doing that'

That all dogs were boys and all cats were girls.

That quicksand was something I was likely to encounter quite often and would need to know how to get out of. For some reason there was a lot of getting-stuck-in-quicksand incidents in the TV I watched

That there were pirates in the English Channel, proper old fashioned ones with swords!

LaMarschallin I had the answer to your birth problem because as a child I was convinced that when a woman was ready to give birth, her belly button would open and the stomach stretched open until it was big enough for the midwife to reach in and pick up the baby, then the stomach shrank until the belly button closed again.

I was pretty confident that I was right because I remember my aunt talking about stretch marks.

my mom told me swallowing chewing gum it would wrap round my heart totally impossible of course
when i was little my dad told me that thunder was god mowing his lawn

Swallowed chewing gum would never come on.
Never drink water from upstairs taps.
That your buttocks was storage pouches for poo.

That if you picked a dandelion you'd piss the bed.

I believed babies grew in breasts, all women had babies waiting in each of their breasts until they decided they wanted one, and then the baby came out!

The umbilical cord was the thing which determined if you wanted a boy of a girl, a girl’s was cut short and a boys was cut long.

Goodness knows how I formed these beliefs. I must have watched something about birth my parents were watching and only caught glimpses!

Swallowing chewing gum and foil would cause instant death. I ingested once a tiny piece of foil from a wrapping of a kit kat or some such - really tiny and then spent the rest of the day waiting to die.

Coca cola gives you bad dreams if drunk any later than 7 in the evening.

You had to be an adult to drink coffee.

That doctors and nurses were the same thing. Drs were the male ones and nurses the females. But it was the same job.

I also thought quicksand would feature more heavily in my life

But it's true that swallowing chewing gum gives you appendicitis.

Miss Armstrong taught us that in primary school. It was a very long time ago though.

If you walked near, or, god forbid underneath, a pylon, you would be struck down by lightning from it. Thank you, terrifying public information films.

On a map of the U.K., the top third was Scotland, the middle third was England and the bottom third was Wales. Equally sized and divided by straight lines. Ireland was spelt Island and was called that just because it was a separate island. I was very confused not to go through Wales when we had a holiday on the Isle of Wight, after being told it was off the south coast. Then even more confused to discover that it wasn’t completely white.

Crankley

Trouble is, when my mother told me the facts of life (while we were washing up after Sunday lunch), I only really took away the ideas that:

1. the man's thingie went into your tuppy;

2. the baby came out of the hole in your bottom (me: "Front or back?"; Mother: ""Front" declining to mention anything about a middle one or, indeed, belly buttons;

3. the experience was actually "quite pleasant".

Obviously, I was a bit unsure as to how clued up my mother was (especially with regards to no.3; it did not sound at all pleasant) and, since she neglected to mention erections, I couldn't see how a pathetic bit of flesh, like the one owned by Andrea-over-the-road's younger brother, was going anywhere.

So I sensibly sent off for a book from HMSO, as advertised in Jackie and wised up a bit.

I obviously still didn't quite get it, as they just said that - post-insertion of the more-promising looking erect penis - "the couple move together".
I had to graduate onto romantic bodice-rippers and descriptions of "thrusting" before I worked out that the couple needed to move in opposite directions...

That prior to the 1970’s the world was black and white, because otherwise the photos would have colours in them. I thought one day everyone woke up and colour had miraculously occurred and thought it must have been quite frightening to begin with.

One that sticks in my mind is thinking when two people married they were automatically handed a baby by the priest! I remember going to visit my newly married aunt and uncle and wandering from room to room saying "where's the baby?" and them looking shocked and saying "What baby?"

At infants’ school a friend me told that we were due to enter another ice age (this was the seventies, before anyone was aware of global warming), and I worried about how my mum would come and collect me if it happened while I was at school, if the ice flowed between our house and the school.

That there would be a hurricane if it was windy and then it went calm.
That my dad and brother would get sent to Iraq to fight.
That if I went to the beach I would step I. Quicksand and die.
That every rottweiler would kill me.

Child of the eighties who read a newspaper..which in hindsight probably wasn't a good thing!

That anyone wearing anything camouflage pattern (joggers, hoody etc) was from the army and possibly a ‘baddy/enemy’

@Robbybobtail

One that sticks in my mind is thinking when two people married they were automatically handed a baby by the priest! I remember going to visit my newly married aunt and uncle and wandering from room to room saying "where's the baby?" and them looking shocked and saying "What baby?"

Reminds me of my dd thinking that on the day you become a grown up you are automatically given a house, a car and a job.