WTF moments from childhood

[Lyannaa]

I vividly remember sitting in a circle at primary school and playing a game (facilitated by teachers). It was a variation on ‘spin the bottle’ and this boy named the girl he wanted to kiss. The feeling was not mutual from her end and she began running around and around the circle, trying to evade both the boy and the disgraceful teachers trying to hold her down. Vile. How was this a thing? All I remember was sitting there thinking ‘thank goodness this isn’t me’.

This was 1989…

@WillimNot

If you don't understand my point then I can't begin to explain.

@GoneWithTheWindIsMyFart

Well you're probably a nicer person than me, but I am as bad as that poster . I once joined in laughing at a nasty joke told about one of my class mates. I'm not proud of it but what I did wasn't any better or less horrible or damaging than what that other poster did. Fortunately we grow up and learn and change.

Explains why you stuck up for the poster.

Horrible.

@GoneWithTheWindIsMyFart

I'm not ignorant I'm someone with first hand experience of sexual abuse and verbal bullying.

Act like it then!!

What does that mean? I've shared my story already? I acknowledge that both things are damaging and that I and the other girl need to heal from those things. We been through the same kind of shit, and I accept that.

When I was at secondary school,there where two paths in and out of the grounds

One a path and the other (going in the opposite direction) was a drive

Two girls (a few years younger than me) where about 13/14

Every lunchtime,they would hitch their skirts up and walk down the drive

A bloke (who looked about 35) would pull up in his car,they'd jump in and off they would go

They'd come back,trying to smooth their hair down and walk back up the drive

The teachers did nothing to stop them-just mutterings about 'getting themselves pregnant' before walking away

They clearly saw these two girls walking every lunchtime down the drive to be abused and did nothing

The local parents in the area did nothing (mine included) but mutter away about how 'its their own fault if they get pregnant'

This went on everyday they where at that school

About 1995 ish

Kind of makes me think of Jimmy Savile. Some very dark stuff went on when we were kids. As another poster upthread states thank God for Childline and Esther Rantzen.

He looked nothing like Saville,but by god,he had that cockiness and total confidence that he'd never be stopped

He was bloody spot on

The girls where the 'slappers','teases' and 'at fault for putting themselves at risk'

Your right-thank fuck for childline and awareness

I'd never 'mind my own business' when it comes to a child

Those poor girls. I hate men like that.

Have already posted about questionable school practice…but also, this thread has made me recall some highly negligent parenting! Not only was I allowed to cycle off all day (without a helmet of course) around rural roads - mostly fields, but also some pretty scary B roads with fast cars/farm vehicles, I also went and climbed around in haystacks and grain mountains.

Worse, my parents knew I’d often take a canoe out on the river totally unsupervised/ by myself, despite the strong currents and weirs. This was all around the age of 9/10 makes me go quite cold thinking about it now…

Also remember a little girl at my primary who lived in a neighbouring town who would get the train to and from school (followed by a 10/15 minute walk) all by herself from the age of 7!

Also remember a little girl at my primary who lived in a neighbouring town who would get the train to and from school (followed by a 10/15 minute walk) all by herself from the age of 7!

I used to get the bus to primary school with my older brother. He moved to secondary school when I was 7 so I walked to the bus stop, got the bus and then walked from there to school by myself. After school it was the same in reverse. This was unremarkable then.

As a child,I lived with my grandad but my narc mother had to keep up appearances and give the impression I didn't,so I went to a school that was round the corner to her

My grandad lived about 2 and a half miles away

I would walk to school,by myself,over 3 very busy main roads (only one had a crossing) from being about aged almost 5

Not one person batted an eyelid-lots of older kids would walk siblings home too

This thread brings back so many memories from the 80s that I haven't thought about in years.

I remember going on a school outwood bound trip in July 1982, I was 12 a few weeks before. The house used for the activities was in use by another school, our school was placed in chalets about 5 miles away and taken to the activities by coach each day.

The chalets were normal holiday chalets and slept 6 people, there wasn’t enough teachers to have one teacher per chalet, I was in a chalet with 5 other 12 year old girls and no teacher. We weren’t told to lock the door at night and were not checked on by an adult.

We could have left the chalet and no one would have known

The chalets around us were in use by holiday makers ( it was the first week of the school holidays) and anyone could have walked in at any point.

We had to walk along the sea front every morning to meet at a cafe for breakfast and were supplied with in the ingredients to make our own sandwiches for lunch.

I also remember being in class when I was 9, a boy had been misbehaving ( he was classed as one of the naughty boys but today would possibly have been added to the SEN register. The teacher lost her temper with him and grabbed him by the shirt collar, she pulled him backwards and forwards so may times with such force that his shirt collar ripped away from his shirt, she panicked and left the room for a few minutes then came back and carried on with the lesson, eventually he was given a replacement shirt from lost property.

The same child was also made to stand in front of the class and we were told by the male deputy head that the child’s behaviour was so bad that he had agreed with his parents that the only solution was corporal punishment and it would be carried out in front of his classmates.
He then proceeded to lie the boy over his knee and hit him numerous times with a slipper with all his strength. The boy was crying in pain.

I remember watching it horrified and wanting it to stop, I was a child who behaved anyway but seeing that made me terrified of doing anything wrong.

Finally same school, we were 10 years old and our year group were taught in portable cabins away from the main school.

Once morning the teachers told us there was a gas leak in the cabins and that we were to continue working but we might start to feel sick/tired and if we did we were to put a wet paper towel over our mouths and keep working, children were crying because they were scared, wet paper towels over their mouths asking if we could go into the main building which wasn’t affected etc, this carried on until 11.55am when the teachers said it was an April fools joke!

Another case of missing lessons to have 'jobs' in school during 80's primary.

On Wednesdays there was no secretary. One pair of girls would have the office until lunch, then me and another would take over until the end of the day.

In year 6 the caretaker appeared in class one day and asked who had pet fish at home. Me and a boy ( I can't remember his name and it's really going to bug me now) put our hands up. We were taken to the corridor where a fish tank had been smashed with a cricket ball.

We saved the fish by putting them into buckets. Then we both had the job of looking after the fish in their buckets in the boiler room / care takers office for several weeks until a replacement fish tank appeared. We wasted so much time messing about in that boiler room. We both received a box of chocolates in assembly for keeping those fish alive.

O think one of my real wtf moments is realising how little most of our primary teachers cared about our education. They thought we were all going to go into factories as adults, so as long as we had basic reading and writing and arithmetic, we were good to go.

Do you mean to come across as patronising or is a skill you're proud of?
DFOD

Brilliant. I remember the 1980s 'jobs' too.

The bell monitor.... Said child had to get an actual brass bell and run from one side of the school to the other across the path outside ringing it to mark end of day and lunchtime. Run mind you! Loved it when it was snowing. ..we used to try and skid the last bit 😁

The art monitors...looked after the art room which was brilliant. We were the arty kids and made massive pictures for the wall displays.

Best of all...
The post monitors. To qualify you had to .....live past the post box at the other end of the village. It entailed leaving school early and making sure the post from school was put in said postbox before it was collected by the postman.

Food teacher who wood smoke in her 'office' during lessons and then come out to stick her fingers in what you had cooked to taste it 🤢 few years after I'd left the school she had a heart attack in front of a class 😱 this was mid naughties

One of the girls sleeping over at a teachers house! We were 16 and doing our GCSEs and the girl missed an exam because it clashed with another, so to stop her from conferring with those who had taken it to find out the answers, she slept over at the teachers house! Teacher was a lovely woman, but you’d never have that happen now! Was around 2000

A weird game in primary school (year 5/6 I think it would have been), it was after school and we had a girl in our year who was bullied a lot, for some reason many people didn't like her much, there was something vulnerable about her. She came into the classroom to get something she had forgotten and two of the boys and one of the girls decided to pin her to the floor to take her underwear off to see what was underneath. Why they wanted to do that I don't know. They had shut her in the stationary cupboard for a joke but she panicked and started crying so they told her if she would let them see her naked they would let her go. So they tried to strip her underwear off, she fought back but they wouldn't stop. I was the one whom had to hold her down .Nothing else happened but she was hysterical . I think her mum was told and came to the school and complained but the teacher concluded she was making it up. It was weird and I pushed it to the back of my mind until recently.

You think this was a game? Really?? If this happened today, you'd all be in trouble with the police.

Went to an all girls secondary school, we used to do PE in vest and knickers outside ,and across the road from the school (inner London built up area). Thing was there was a chain link fence between us and the public who would be passing by and could see all!, even worse was the paedo's who used to stand and watch us, we were 11 and 12 years old- back in 1971

I'm only 33 and yet remember so many fucked up moments at school in the nineties/early 2000s.
I was really shy and my Year six teacher screamed at me over and over again because he thought I didn't do a clear enough letter D in my writing for some reason. It was so random and his unpredictable moods terrified us. He was a huge misogynistic with awful views. I remember a girl had not long lost her mother to cancer ( maybe a week or so earlier) and he did a similar screaming episode what he did to me about something trivial. Bastard.

In secondary creepy male teachers were everywhere and my form teacher actually seen me a year later when I was just turned 17 in tesco and claimed I had always been a looker!!! My sisters form teacher seen us as a family in a pub and was trying to ply us with alcohol (knowing my sister was just 15) and asked me out on a date despite me having not long left the school ( and remembering me from there!) Too many dodgy things to even type.

Same 1963, lived with my mum, nan and uncle. Nan was retired mum and uncle at work , nan was out most afternoons when I came home from school , the key used to be left under the front door mat for me to let myself in.

Went to a state school and for reasons unknown wore wraparound kilts for our school uniform. Big catchment, so lots of girls cycled to school. We weren't allowed to wear skirt pins (why not?!?!) to stop them from flapping open, and being seen out and about wearing one was a detention-worthy offence. Absolute nightmare while cycling, or during windy weather.

We were partnered with a local boys' school and the boy sixth formers would visit and put on activities during rag week to raise money. One was called 'Hunt the Hunk', which involved paying a quid to run around school and try to find the 'hunk', who would give you a rose if you were the first to find him. There was also a 'fashion show' which was open to all year groups to attend, so from Y7 up. The show always culminated in the boys coming on stage and stripping down to their boxers to music.

Quite a few WTF moments:

Being screamed at repeatedly and having my hair pulled for not being able to understand how to do geometry homework.

The attempted exorcisms on me for having a learning issue and being asked by my DF what sin I had committed to cause it. Then being told I was pretending for attention.

Being told about how the world was ending one day and we would either go to heaven or burn in hell forever.

Feeling afraid because my mum had to go out to meetings in the evening or choir practice which !want being left alone with my DF. I didn't like being left alone with him. I couldn't say why, I was just afraid and couldn't name what he was doing to us.

Being told about periods for the first time and being horrified that one day I would bleed every month. Being afraid it was going to hurt.

My sister becoming depressed as a teenager and being told she had to pull herself together that she was bringing shame on the family reputation and that she would be slashed to pieces and buried in the woods if she didn't stop whining.

Being told by my DF I was toxic for admitting to being brutally sexually assaulted in my teens and to stop causing trouble.

Having to be interviewed by a social worker as a child and feeling confused that she thought things at home were ok but not being able to explain that they weren't . After all no kid likes their parents being cross with them and it wasn't like we were actually being hit.

Being told how fat and ugly I was and hating myself but not knowing how to stop eating until I felt sick. Trying to stop the empty feelings inside.

The feeling of a the blade going into my skin and realising I could stop feeling so angry and raw for a short while if I just cut and saw blood.

Being afraid to tell someone I was self harming and suicidal because of I told they would stop me and I need a an escape route if things got too bad at home or in my brain.

What is it with PE teachers? Seems to be a universal thing...