"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.

Many years ago, when student DCs were tiny, I went to a local secondhand shop to donate some of DD’s nearly new baby things. Next door was an old fashioned piano shop, and I could hear the sound of a Rachmaninov prelude coming through the doors so thought I’d go in.

Someone was actually playing this live. A boy who couldn’t have been more than about 12. Once I’d got my lower jaw back in the correct position, I joined in the conversation between him and the old chap who ran the shop. The boy visited the shop for fun, and had even composed pieces.

Neither shop is there now. They’ve been replaced by a beauty salon and an art supplies shop. But I’ve looked up the boy (he has quite a distinctive name) and he is indeed forging a very distinguished (though more academic than ‘starry’) musical career.

I went to college in the early 1990s and there was the most beautiful lad called Jason. I was really shy around guys and had the most awful chin spots. I couldn't believe it when he started looking my way. I so wanted to talk to him but those wretched spots stopped me. I wish I could remember his surname so I could nosey on the internet and see if he's still beautiful.

There was a girl in school with me from around 13 to 15 (I moved away) and she was absolutely filthy, I mean literally covered in dirt with foul skin infections. She smelled so bad you could tell as you entered the reception area if she had arrived. She had to sit alone in a different part of the room on account of the smell and we had to keep windows open all year round so we were allowed wear coats in the room. Apparently the school tried to get her to shower using school facilities but she refused, I think she did eventually when it became a disciplinary issue. Parents were kind of off grid hippies I think. Everyone avoided her and many ridiculed her but sometimes I would talk to her although I'd be nearly gagging. She told me they had no running water and her uncle washed her school uniform once during holidays. I think she literally wore the same shirt for months. She was a bit strange socially and I'd say had never had friends, poor girl. Despite this she was a brilliant student and really talented artist! I left the school soon after but a few years later I went to quite a prestigious university and bumped into her on campus a few weeks in. She was clean and her skin was clear and all the scabs were gone, although she was dressed like someone's granny and stood out a bit. She told me she had a flat share and was enjoying life etc and I was delighted to see her turning her life around. A few months later she had a baby and that's the last I ever heard of her, I presume she quit university as i never saw her again. I think of her a lot and pray some service looked after her and she didn't bring a child back to whatever hell hole she came from. Nothing online and she has a really unusual (possibly made up) name.

I met a girl on holiday when I was 16 and we used to write letters/text but lost contact. I remember her first name was Kristen and she was from county cavan but that's it.

Jaspal Chohan. A tiny, tiny girl, gentle and sweet, who sobbed her heart out on the last day of term because her Dad had said she was going to be sent 'home' the next to be married to a cousin because she was 16 and her Mum couldn't argue she had to stay at school anymore.

She was about four foot nine with huge, beautiful eyes and long lashes.

We told the teachers, but doubt that anything happened to stop it.

I remember "moonlight flits" we lived in block of flats when I was growing up and I heard moonlight flit a few times just up and left!

A girl who started at our senior school mid term, she was filthy and smelled very badly of urine, her hair was matted and dirt was ingrained in her skin. When we had to change for games her underwear was solid and stiff with dirt, she used to stand away from everyone as she must have known how bad the smell was.

No one knew where she came from, or where she lived and after only a few weeks she disappeared and no one heard anymore about her.

I often wonder what her home life was like and what happened to her, I hope no harm came to her and she grew up safe and managed to live a happy normal life.

Thank you for all these, so interesting.

PP's absolutely right that the weird, dumb, smelly kids at school in the 80s and 90s probably had serious learning issues, mental health problems or were suffering abuse at home and were just kind of overlooked as smelly, weird and thick. Really sad.

All the people I met at Wall Park Pontins in Torbay in 1977. We were there when it was announced Elvis had died. I often think of them

Isn't it weird to think you yourself may be one of these incidental people? A bit part in someone else's life?

I often wonder about my age 9 teacher Ms Davis who was a real old school treasure. She retired when I was 10 so wouldn't be alive now. Always perfectly turned out in matching waistcoat and skirt with backcombed white hair. A spinster.

I also wonder about a girl I knew via uni, she was a tall goth with amazing Egyptian tattoos and had those purple dreads. We are the same age so I'm sure she is around somewhere at the front of a rock band storming the scene!

Yes. I thinking that myself.

I have two

One a girl in primary school who was really quiet. Her mum took her own life when the girl was about 7 and I wonder how her life turned out after such a sad tragedy.

The second is my next door neighbour until I was 12 when we moved away. We played together a bit, but she went to a private school and I was in the local state one. Her mother was really ill with anorexia and I believe she died not long after we moved away.

There was a girl in my younger brother's class in primary school who was so beautiful that when the film Moana came out the girl came to mind - as if Moana was a real person she would have been the spitting image of this girl. Anyway I looked her up, and sadly found she had died in a car accident at university around 15 years previously. So sad.

I doubt anyone is still thinking of me.

My friend who just disappeared from school in sixth year. I used to go round to her house to ask for her, she wasn't there. Years later I wonder if she had an arranged marriage.

I went to primary school (she was in the year above) with a girl who lived over the road from my nanna. We started to play together, we’d play barbies and I remember listening to the spice girls cd on her bedroom floor.

Her mum however was really abusive, I was terrified of her and witnessed the abuse on a number of occasions. My friend was eventually put into care and I think about her now and again. I know her last name but not how to spell it so have struggled to find her on social media. I also have no recollection of her face so wouldn’t remember her if I saw her, my mum might though. I hope she’s living a good life.

Two sets of sisters. Both brought up in filthy dirty homes. Both sides obvious physical and sexual abuse. Mum in one case had horrendous mental health issues and had been horrendously abused herself - was a good friend of my mum (who had horrendous issues herself, but managed to keep us clean), mum and dad in the second case spent half their life in the pub, the mum was a provvy lady and I remember my mum had us duck down below the window once when she couldn’t afford to pay her back. Remember mum was absolutely terrified of her.

In the first family, they moved 100s of miles away - haven’t seen them in years, but certainly eldest daughter was becoming her mum. The younger one left home but I don’t know if she’s OK. Second case, they just vanished overnight. Father still lives in same village but mum and daughters disappeared twenty five years ago. Never found them on Facebook.

Also more sadly; when I was 5 or 6 I was admitted to a general medical ward. My
parents were kicked out for fighting with each other in resus as you do so vividly remember lying awake upset much of the night - huge nightingale ward … there was a wee girl in an isolation room with a window looking into the rest of the ward who stood and stared out the window with hair like orphan Annie … and two tiny wee girls in huge cots who screamed all night long - vividly remember my mum and dad telling me they’d ‘played with tablets’… Was only 1997 so not exactly the dark ages but was a very old fashioned hospital (flattened years ago) and a bit scary! Occasionally wonder what happened to the two wee girls - scared the life out of me.

Because of this thread I went and looked up that boy from my primary class. I remember one of the teachers talking about how thick and lazy he was, it’s really stuck with me-even then I could see that wasn’t right. Always felt for him. Anyway, a bit of Facebook sleuthing tells me he joined the army, left and got set up as a mechanic, and looks generally very happy! School is just shit for some people.

I have most of them on FB so that stops the wondering.

Two people,

One from primary who's mum died before she started school, she left primary, then returned a few years later before leaving again.
I thought she would have turned up at secondary but she didn't.

The second is from secondary we kept in touch for a long time but she'd had an abusive childhood and serious MH issues. She wanted to cut all ties with the past I was the past so that included me.
I've searched her but never found her I think she might have changed.her name

My primary school had a catchment area that included some really deprived areas and looking back now, some of those children I was at school with had awful lives. I moved on to an all girls secondary afterwards with most of my female classmates, but I often wonder what became of some of the boys:

Richard, who was the only child of a single mum who was clearly struggling with mental illness. We often used to see his mum shuffling around the streets, always unkempt, barefoot and muttering to herself. I hope they’re both ok, wherever they are these days.

James was always in trouble. He used to steal from the other kids lunchboxes, the teachers used to haul him up regularly in front of the whole class and chastise him for being a thief. The other kids used to call him a ‘stig’ and a ‘scav’ but he was clearly a severely neglected child. He could barely read by the time we left at the end of year six and some of the other kids took the piss out of him mercilessly for it.

David came from a large family, I think he was one of six or seven children. He used to miss school for weeks at a time and no real reason was ever given for his absences. He would have a good run of being in school, be off for a few weeks, and then reappear as if nothing had happened. He was always dirty and smelly and never had the right uniform. I wonder if he continues to be affected by the large gaps in his education.

I am shocked at how many girls on this thread were shipped 'back home' to get married. Really sad.

Just to give a slightly different perspective on some of those deprived kids in the 80s and 90s.

I started primary school teaching in 1991, in a very poor rough area of east London.
The teaching and ancillary staff were well aware of the backgrounds of some of these kids and fought hard to get more done.
eg, one family 3 kids, oldest girl was mothering the other 2, she was 7. They were dirty, uncared for and hungry. Mum was not able to look after them. But SS never actually removed them from her or did enough.

one boy in my class, he had siblings but I can't remember any details. He was always smelly. About every 3 weeks we would phone SS and say the smell is too much. They went round, washed kids, washed clothes and told mum off. His only food was school dinners. Dinner ladies piled his plate high and made sure he had seconds. We worried about what he ate at weekends and holidays. He slept with no blanket or sheets. His mum was an alcoholic and sometimes kept her 'babies' at home because she couldn't bear to be parted from them for the day.

3rd one, mum had had terrible burns accidnet and was in and out of hosiptal for 5 years, 2 kids were therefore in and out of foster care. Some of their foster placements were positively abusive. I remember the younger one being sent to school in sandals and no socks in December.

I could go on. But school was often aware and battling to get action.
Why were SS so bad? Mostly I think that there was simply nowhere to send the kids. Terrible lack of foster carers. Keep them with the family at all costs, it is cheaper.

but also, that girl mothering her younger siblings, she read as an escape, and was an amazing reader and loved school. I really hope she was able to make a life for herself.

On the street I grew up on their were two old men who were twins, who dressed the same, wandered around together. I just remember being fascinated by them.

This is so sad.