"Incidental" people you remember from childhood and sometimes wonder about...

[GiveMeOil]

By "incidental people" I mean those we knew in passing in some way rather than people who had a more central role in our lives.

Are there any of these people that you often think or wonder about?

For me, there was a girl I went to college in the early-00s with whose shoes (kitten heels or ballet pumps), belt (one of those chunky ones worn on the hip with a bit hanging down one leg), handbag (tiny shoulder bag), and eye shadow (right up to the eyebrows) were always a perfectly matching colour.
I think about her every time I'm shopping for new clothes and wonder what her style is like nowadays. I don't think I ever spoke to her and I can't remember her name.

There was also a boy who used to live up the road from me who used to lie about everything. I often wonder what he's like now and whether he grew out of the lying. I've tried finding him on social media but he had a really common name and haven't been able to do so.

There was a girl in our class who only came for a year. She couldn’t read and some of the people (we had an awful class) laughed at her. It was horrible. I was really quiet (I was laughed at regularly and tried to keep my head down) and I remember trying to catch her eye to I don’t know, give her a ‘someone’s in your corner’ type thing but she didn’t look. The guilt I feel is horrendous and I try to find her regularly but nobody I kept in touch with remembers her second name

A boy who bullied me a little in secondary school, but was a horrendous bully to others. Occasionally wondered what became of him in passing.

Saw an obituary on Facebook last week. He has just died of cancer leaving 4 kids and a wife behind.

Sad that a contemporary has died, and obviously sad for his family. A little bitchy part of me says 'well that's what you get for making so many kids lives miserable'. Not kind of me I know but 🤷‍♂️

A boy I played with when on holiday in Cyprus when i was 6. We were staying at a villa and there was a bit of a gap in the fence between our gardens, so we played together passing things back and forth. No shared language.

there was also a man my dad used to chat to sometimes at the church. He went a bit mad the older he got and would sing in the church as he collected money (he used to do church collections) and would stop traffic talking to himself. The last time we saw him his coat was in tatters and his trousers were too short and dad was heartbroken and he always kept himself so well. Him and my mum were debating where he could/should go to but then he wasn’t at mass the following week and for weeks my dad was looking for him.

Went to school with two Asian sisters. They went on holiday with their dad to Pakistan (I think) and they never returned.

I often wonder what happened to them.

The early 60's... Ruth in my primary school. She was bullied a lot. Her dad was a drunk and waste of space. Mum tried her best. My mum used to give her our old clothes (and we weren't rich so some were 2nd hand to us) and some bits of food that we could afford to give. She was always a bit dirty. I never saw her after primary. I hope her life got better and she was happy.

I attended private school and one year we had a girl from Italy start. There were rumours her family were linked to the Mafia/similar and the police came to school one day and took her away in the back of a car. It wasn't an arrest but she was taken in for questioning on something. I still wonder what that was, but I don't remember her surname.

Slightly different but I was sorting through a box of old stuff and I found a letter to me from someone called Linda dated around the time I was at university. I do not remember her at all. It's so odd as I'm normally really good at remembering people. It made me doubt the reliability of my memory!
I was at uni at the turn of this century and that name sounds older to me.

a guy I worked with 20 years ago. I was falling in love with him but didn’t really know it and stupidly talked myself out of following up on a heavy session, I thought he was way out of my league. We had such a connection, would talk for hours.
he was made redundant, then had a really bad accident. He just stopped returning my calls. I was heartbroken.
He’s not on social media. I think he moved to Australia

I remember the caretaker from one of my primary schools.
He was ancient- to me, and gave me and an Asian girl an excellent insight into things. She was being racially abused (very early 70s).
He told her that everyone is the same inside.
"It's the difference between brown eggs white eggs "
It's clearly stayed with me. I'm 59.
What a What a wise chap

I've just googled a girl I knew for a year or so in primary school.....and it turns out she is a film director😀😀😀

A Girl I knew at college, she came to my wedding but I never saw her again afterwards.
She had a very unusual name, pronounced Le-Reece, not even sure of the spelling. She looked a lot like the lead singer of The Bangles but with Siouxie hair and make up.
I tried to trace her but can’t find anything past 2011 when she was a director of her husband’s company that then folded, she’s not on any electoral records in either maiden or married name. I wonder if she emigrated, her Dad was very wealthy.

I always wonder about a girl from infant school called Sandra. She left our school to go elsewhere and she wore a hairclip and had bob like short hair. I used to think she was the most perfect person but don't know if I ever spoke to her.

Other than that there was a boy who joined our school who was from a very religious family and appeared to be a bit unstable and criticised his Mum making me later wonder about domestic abuse from the Dad. Sadly, when I looked him up he had committed suicide.

And Zoe at our junior school, a girl in foster care who said she had been taken off her Mum but the foster carers she said were much worse and would push her down the stairs. We reported it but sadly in the 70s / 80s none of the teachers / parents helped much.

And Caroline clearly lactose intolerant whose Dad who beat her up when she vomited the school milk for being an embarrassment. She and we were so happy when Mrs Thatcher banned up so the beatings would stop.

Yes a girl from my school going back almost 40 years ago now. (first year of seniors) almost killed or rather could have killed or maimed another student by dropping a metal bar on her head. Luckily it missed her by inches. . I don't think the Police were ever involved as I don't remember anyone from school being questioned. The girl was expelled more or less straight away. (Well she never came back to the school after that day.) It was never really spoken of again. The girl it happened to didn't seem traumatised either. .(unless it never actually happened and I've got a weird false memory) I often wonder how she's turned out. I've not seen her in a mugshot so I assume she's turned out okay.

A girl I knew, father was a gypsy and mum was a muslim revert, got pregnant at 13 and a few months later her Dad picked her up from school and we never saw her again. Her Mum moved to Pakistan with her new husband shortly afterwards and nobody ever thought of or asked about her again - not even her best friends. It was so strange.

I always wonder about a classmate of my when I was in senior infants. Her parents set up a business in the town near the out school and would often hand out lollipops to her classmates when we we passed.
Our school always got the school caretaker to dress up as Santa/Father Christmas. I remember she was second last in line and I was last. She asked Santa could he get her parents to say hello/goodmorning to her in the morning and goodnight to her when she went to bed. We were only six, I was so sad for her. I did tell our teacher. Her family moved away a few months later. I always wondered about her.

I wonder quite a lot what happened to some of the 'naughty' or 'weird' kids who in retrospect obviously had learning difficulties or were on the autism spectrum. I suspect everyone who went to school before at least the mid 90s can think of a few.

My friend Freja from infant school. Think she moved away but am not sure. There was another girl who did move away but I've forgotten her name. Often wonder about the two of them.

Two sisters whose gran went to my mum's church. Their parents stood out when they visited - probably alcoholics and drug-takers, not like the middle-class congregation. There was an incident in the local wood, satanic worship and child abuse, that was front-page news. I heard someone tell my mum these children were involved, but I never heard the details. I do know I never visited again.

Finally, a lass whose father I worked with as a teen. I met her a couple of times, but her father spoke of her, and her sister, often. He killed himself a few years after I left, and the family emigrated to Australia. I found her sister on FB a few years ago and really wanted to get in touch but I didn't want to upset them.

There’s a few people who I had a connection with over the years who just seem to have disappeared into thin air. Claire and Tanya from secondary school. Renee and Georgina from primary. Not to mention a few people I’ve worked with, Anita and Marina spring to mind. I often think about them all

Get in touch.

I’ve had some people reach out on social media over the years. I also left school/the area very suddenly following the death of my dad. Sometimes I feel quite sad that what was a huge, life changing event for me doesn’t even register the slightest impact for those I spent my days with.

There was a girl down my road I used to play with, at preteen age. We used to cuddle in her bedroom (yeah, it turns out I was gay!) until her father got the gist and banned us from seeing each other. He was Sikh, her older brother also lived at home but I don't know where her mother was. Anyway I used to see her around after that and we would smile but never spoke again because we'd been banned from speaking.

I often wonder how she got on in life.

There was another boy at primary school, he had glasses and blond hair and was very quiet and used to wet himself a lot. I think he was called Leslie or Scott and we were all about 7. Suddenly he was no longer in our class and never came back to school. I always wonder what happened to him.

When I was around 8 in 2002 we went on a family holiday to Salou. There I met a girl named Sam from Liverpool, we were together all the time on this holiday. We sang the same song on the karaoke every night for almost 2 weeks. We took each others addresses and wrote to each other a couple of times. Every time I hear the song on the radio I think of her and us singing it together! I wish I could remember her last name though to Facebook her.

Loads of people from school - esp the lad I used to sit next to in business studies who was planning to mug someone at the bus station that night.... His mother was a prostitute and dad in prison.

Lass I worked with who apparently got shipped to Pakistan to marry a cousin she'd never met, after having had a fling with a white fella

I spent a year at another school in the 80s when I was in my teens, and while I made a few friends I had one very close one in particular. I lost track of her in the 90s and so, it seems, did everyone else in the class. Really common name, so impossible to find on social media. I'd love to be back in touch.
And from way back in primary, when I was six, my friend Frances-over-the-fish-shop.