What are you still salty about?

[AmberTurnerCo]

Years later

I would not getting a wagon wheel in year 5 over 18 years ago.

Oh, this is quite a recent one!

I was up for an award for something I do. Against me was one other lady and a famous person. I was SO looking forward to meeting the famous person at the awards do (we HAD to attend the 'do' to be allowed to enter the award).

Famous person did not turn up. I won the award, they had obviously been told they weren't going to win, so didn't bother to strain themselves to attend. Other lady and I had a ball.

But I am still salty about it. Even if you haven't won, surely you have the decency to turn up!

🌺 Some of these are so sad. Not surprised you’re all still salty!

Mine: several bastards of teachers who must have entered their profession in order to bully children.

First one: I was queuing for my school photo and combing my hair to be neat for it. Head teacher sauntered past the whole line, stopped when he got to me and said ‘you can do that all you like, you’ll always be ugly.’ I was 12. For years his words were all I could think of when I looked at that photo.

Second one: a teacher wrote the following on a story I’d written: ‘this would be very good if I actually thought you’d written it.’ The cow smirked when she handed me her comments.

And to the people wishing they’d been brought up bilingual I was and wish I wasn’t. I had to speak to my dad in French. He was a very uninvolved parent, left 99% of the childcare to my mum and left when I was 12 and as a result I was never quite fluent. To this day he refuses to speak to me in English and I just don’t have the fluency to be able to have a proper conversation about anything real and our relationship is quite superficial small talk as a result. So it’s not always a good thing to be raised in a bilingual household!

It was at secondary school - cookery lesson. I accidentally clipped my forearm on the oven door when getting a pie out. Mrs F made me go to the secretary's office for first aid. As I was the second girl to have a similar accident the same morning she refused to treat me until I made a confession (false) about 'mucking about' which annoyed me. I felt like saying no but had to do as I was told.

Decades later I hear that this demented old biddy is passing herself off as a retired head teacher. Mentioning no names or places except to say that her surname is an unfortunate personality trait which certainly applies to her.

And a teacher one. I had a horrible form teacher who hated me for literally no reason. A few days before sports day she designated everyone an activity. She read them out from a list and we all had to put our hand up and she would choose someone to do it. I wasn’t athletic at all and had bad asthma. I put my hand up for all the activities I though I could do like long jump, shotput, discus etc and each time she gave the activity to other people. The last activity on the list was hurdles and she gave it to me. My school didn’t have hurdles, I’d literally never done one in my life. I told her that but she didn’t care and so on sports day, we went to a nearby sports stadium to do it. When it was my turn I was so nervous and I panicked and tripped on the first hurdle, fell flat on my face in front of the entire stadium who all erupted with laughter and 13 year old me picked myself up and could see the teacher stood at the side just smirking at me. I was so embarrassed to go back to school the next day and she brought it up in class and everyone laughed at me. Such a horrible thing to do I don’t know why someone would do that.

@EoinMcLovesCakeJumper

Was it this kitchen?

Definitely false advertising!

Being told I wasn't being bullied by some girls in my class, that I must have done something to 'provoke' them when they broke my arm and that all the work they ruined (art projects) wasn't that good in the first place. I nearly attempted suicide because of them and if it weren't for the one librarian who gave me sanctuary at lunches I genuinely don't think I'd be here today. So thank you Mrs White and fuck all the rest of the teachers at that school and those girls.

When I was 12 I was in a county swimming gala. The judge in charge of my lane forgot to start the timer so even though I won it didn't count because there wasn't an official record.

I'm still salty 40 years on...

My year 7 maths teacher, stood me up one lesson and asked me why I had doodled in my book (I had drawn a flower in the margin). She then ripped up my excercise book AND made me buy a new one using my dinner money. I was so scared I didn’t tell my mum. Actually had my own back on her, because I interviewed her for a place at the school where I am currently second in department. She didn’t get the job.

Another one is that in reception the teacher gave us all apples, and a boy called Mark H threw his apple in the bin without biting it and when The teacher asked whose it was, he said mine. And she fucking believed him. I had to miss a break time and I didn’t get an apple the next day either.

Another school one:

My junior school had its own pool, with compulsory swimming lessons for all. There was a system of awards called 'flashes' which you had to progress through. Each 'flash' was a little bit of coloured ribbon which got sewn onto your swimming costume, so it was easy to see who had attained what.

For the first level, you had to put your head underwater by sitting briefly on the bottom of the pool. At the very first lesson, they said anyone who felt ready to do that could get their first flash that day, but if you didn't feel ready yet, that was ok and you could just splash about at the shallow end. I'd never had swimming lessons before so I picked that option, along with quite a few others. By the second lesson, there were a few less of us, and by the next lessons, even less, until it was just me who hadn't done it because by that point I was just so self-conscious that I couldn't do it in front of everyone. So everyone except me now had the first flash sewn onto their costume.

The irony was that over the next couple of years I mastered the things which you had to do for the second, third and fourth flashes (float to the side, swim a width with a float, swim a length with a float) BUT because I still hadn't got first flash, they wouldn't let me have these! I was the only person - possibly ever - to leave the school without any flashes at all. They used to call out the names in class and people went up to get their flashes, it was this huge deal, and I just got more and more embarrassed and resentful. It traumatised me with regard to swimming, and now 40+ years later, and despite a couple of attempts to learn as an adult, I am still a non-swimmer!

I just think it's terrible child psychology. If they'd let me have flashes 2, 3 and 4 it would have boosted my confidence and I'd have learned to swim! As it was, I had to sit out most of the final year due to a stubborn verruca and I couldn't have been more relieved about it.

I made swimming lessons for my DS non-negotiable from almost before he could walk. I'm happy to say he had a couple of lovely teachers, loves swimming and is a very strong swimmer. But he always has to go with his dad because of the stupid flashes.

@Minai yes, that's the one, the lying fuckers. I can see I've misremembered the toast, probably because beans and Swiss roll is obviously not a breakfast dish.

A few people have mentioned being bitter about not getting a Mr Frosty, but I can assure them that it was nothing to write home about. Unless you were very easily pleased as a child and enjoyed eating a slightly chipped ice cube with some nasty orange flavoured dust on it.

I think this is what turned me away from religion..
I went to church camp and the adults were arseholes.
I was bullied by the older kids, one girl who must have been 5 years older than me (I was about 10ish at the time) thought I was trying to steal her boyfriend and called me slag despite the fact we all knew they were having sex.
I was bullied by the adults.
I got banned from the tuck shop for walking too slow (which now seems even nastier because I realise they were saying I was too fat).
Worst of all, I had bought some of those squishy, sticky tomatoes that were like stress balls but softer. From a gift shop they'd told us we could buy stuff from. Some bought them little guns with them red circle rounds in, som bought fart bombs etc. One of the supervisors took them off me and took them into the staff room that only the supervisors kids were allowed in. Her kid was playing with them and fucking broke one and she didnt so much as apologise, just laughed. I'd bought it with my own money, her kid broke it and she laughed. Most of the adults at that church were wankers and one was a paedophile. So I decided that god and the church weren't worthy of my worship if they were destined for heaven just for praying.

English homework (high school) I worked really hard on it and thought it was pretty good. The teacher also though it was good and asked me who wrote it. She wouldn’t believe me when I said I had done it myself and accused me of lying. She told me she would have given me an A but because my mum had obviously written it she was marking me down to a C. I was crushed.

I had to make an Egyptian costume for a show I was in in primary school, I worked my arse off making my costume to be shouted at and told it was crap and I was to do it again. I made another and then we didn't do the song for that costume.

I'm still unhappy 23 years later.

All these teachers not believing children had done / made things. They can't have been that confident in their own abilities if they didn't think they'd taught you to that level. Arseholes.

A teacher once rapped my cousin hard on the head with his knuckles for 'doing his o the wrong way round'. Seriously. Regretted in when our nana went in and rapped him hard on the head with her umbrella to see how he liked it (ah, the 70s). It still gets talked about on FB & school reunions and we're all in our 50s.

I let my mum give my Paddington Bear the big one with real wellies and my large Holly Hobby rag doll to a church sale. Really really have pangs of regret to this day. I also had a smaller Hobby Holly but haven't a clue what happened to her.

Oh boy where to start...

All injustices I was at the time too young to confront really..

Nursery school, aged 3, I hated the school dinners, would leave them, gag, actually vomit. Solution, mother provided me with a packed lunch I would actually eat (and I wasn't being fussy, it wasn't as if I'd eat the nice bits and leave the boring healthy stuff, I'd eat the veg, but hated the overly salty mash, greasy battered fish, disgusting lumpy gritty custard and bland cake)...

Mother informed nursery that I'd be bringing a packed lunch, please provide me with it at meal times. Was told they didn't do that. She told them they would do that, because it was unreasonable not to do so. They agreed, reluctantly...

But seemingly never informed the lunch staff, so I'd be presented with a cooked dinner, which was set out by them, having already eaten my packed lunch handed to me by my class teacher earlier... would leave it as I had already eaten my lunch, then receive a humiliating bollocking for not eating it, wasting food, being ungrateful for food, and then a performance punishment in front of the other kids, 'WiddlinDiddlin doesn't get any dessert as she didn't eat her lunch AGAIN'... (which I didn't want anyway as it was as revolting as the rest of their meals).

In primary school each monday we had to write what we did at the weekends. In my family that meant things like climbing, caving, hill walking, horse riding, on one memorable occasion I recounted how my father took us out for a night walk which involved knocking some pheasants on the head with a stout branch...

Each week I would recieve a telling off for inventing stories, lying, having an over active imagination, or copying stories from books (whilst at the same time being in remedial reading classes because until the age of nearly 7, I couldn't read well enough to read such things!), be made to stand in the corridor etc.

Eventually I started making up rubbish about going to the park and having fishfinger sandwiches for tea, or going to Blackpool to see the lights (things we NEVER did), and at parents day my teacher thought she'd reveal my outrageous lies to my parents, by asking them to identify from my news book, which events had actually happened.

By all accounts she looked pretty stupid when my supposed fantasy stories were all verified as truth by the parents, and my 'truthful' accounts of weekends in the park identified as total rubbish. Sadly as I was 6, I wasn't there to see it. I wish I had been! This is a story still told by my father who now finds the account of pheasant poaching funny (he wasn't so chuffed at the time!!)

Luke, my first proper boyfriend. We both lost our virginity together....or so I thought.

Turns out he’d slept with smelly Kelly a few months earlier. Still stings....although not literally anymore.

My favourite nightclub changed owners and turned it into a strip club. Livid was an understatement at the time. While it has changed hands a few times since, I still haven't gotten over it some 20 years later.

That Sarah Smith got the languages prize in fifth form despite her getting A B in German and French and I got A A. Only 4 of us took both languages the others got B B and C D still rankles a lot

I used to be friends with a girl across the road. We were 5 at the time. I used to go over to play maybe once a week. Anyway she had this tiny really cute Teddy bear that I loved playing with with a missing eye. Anyway she agreed to give me the tiny Teddy for a chocolate bar. Fair swap. I took tiny Teddy home and me and mum went to a shop and bought a new eye for the bear, I was so happy. A few weeks later, mother of friend over the road heard about the swap and my mum gave tiny Teddy back. I was so upset. I'm over it now but it still hurts a bit.

I invited some friends (girls down the road) home to play. They locked me out of my bedroom and started wrecking it. I begged my mum for help, but she wouldn’t intervene. Only when the crashes of pulling my bookcase over and me screaming “stop” did she say “er girls I think it’s time to go home now”. Then she told me off and that they were my responsibility. I really wish I had done something to them like a thump or something.

One day at primary school there had been a mix up with the salt and sugar. So the puddings tasted salty. My brother took his back to complain. He was given a different type of dessert. When I mentioned mine was salty too I was told I was a wasteful little girl and made to eat it by a terrifying old hag of a dinner lady.

At my youth group, we once had a sponsored silence, where we all sat in a circle for the duration of the session, to read a book we had each brought with us. A peculiar forfeit would befall any children who spoke: they would be blindfolded for two minutes. This happened to one or two children who did whisper; and then without warning, one of the teenage supervisors (who I think disliked me) did it to me. I protested "I didn't say anything!" She said "you just have". I'm sure she kept me blindfolded for longer than two minutes as well. I pretended I wasn't bothered, but I remember thinking it was unfair at the time.

Thought of another one! In the 1980s m I was diagnosed with “hyperactivity” and my mum was advised to stop cow milk. I turned down puddings at school, refused chocolate treats and cakes. One Sunday my mum said “of course I’m sure denty eats milk at school” me, at 5 said “I don’t have puddings and when the teacher offers chocolate I say no”.

My mum responded “don’t be so ridiculous you don’t have any self control, you’re 5” and I felt absolutely shit!