What are you still salty about?

[AmberTurnerCo]

Years later

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

I’ve got two...it was the silver jubilee year and we had to colour in a picture of the Queen for a competition in all her regalia. I remember doing it so carefully and loved doing it. The head of the parish councils daughter won and hers was so bad, over the lines and everything! 😂 the rest of us didn’t get a look in. I should maybe let that go it was over 40 years ago...

But in miniature, you've described every Blue Peter drawing competition ever. I realised there was no point whatsoever entering when a girl was on telly with the presenter saying "you'll recognise Sarah* from the last competition. Her father is a graphic designer and her mother has exhibited at the Royal Academy" and it was so obvious that six tear old had had help. My entry was a pile of catshit on top of dogshit, but the 13 year old's entry that was brilliant was passed over made it for me. Yeah, do one of those apology videos.

As for all the horror stories about teachers, I'm saving the link to this thread for when I come across a thread where someone says why are you having a go at teachers? They work hard and are fluffy. Have a gander at this - especially the PP who realised she couldn't trust adults after she trusted a teacher to tell the truth when the other teacher wrongfully bollocked a child.

Was at a funeral for a schoolmate recently and chatting to some of those I'd been at school with, I discovered that our Biology teacher used to regularly "lose" write ups of practical experiments. - she did it to me and then my DSis... Until she met my DM. She did it to me and I had to re-do the experiments, but when she said my DSis had missed the same experiments, my DM said "funny that. You said the same about the older Mrs Ashwell. " Oddly enough, she found the write-upsthe next day. She'd put them away........ with the papers of all the other people she'd wanted to fuck over.

Yes, Mrs W, I'm looking at you.

*Sarah

Not her real name, of course.

I was preparing a final year presentation for my degree. My boyfriend created the artwork for a poster describing the chemical reaction I was studying. He drew my idea, which was a humorous ( as humorous as chemistry can be), take on snakes and ladders (my theory was wrong, and I failed to prove my thesis). I freely admitted that my boyfriend created the poster, but the idea was mine. The competition was not for academic merit, it was meant to be for communication skills. Someone else won the prize, but all of my colleagues came to me to say that I won hands over. I am still, 20 years later, salty about it.

I have a few..

1. I’d had a teddy from birth that lived on my bed. When I went on my year abroad during uni, my mum gave it to her dog. When I got home, the teddy had been shagged to within an inch of its life.

1. I have a hearing impairment and wear hearing aids. My first day of comprehensive school, I was told by my form tutor to sit at the front of each of my classes as they hadn’t had a chance to organise a radio aid or teaching assistant for me (turns out that they didn’t know about my hearing impairment as primary school hadn’t passed the info on). This was fine, until the horrible science teacher refused to deviate from his seating plan, and sat me at the back of the classroom, despite me trying to explain. I was then sent out of class for ‘talking’ when I asked the person sat next to me to repeat the things I didn’t hear properly. I tried to tell him that I couldn’t hear properly but he got angry that I was challenging him. I spent most of the hour long lesson outside feeling humiliated with tears streaming down my face. He didn’t even have the decency to apologise when my mum phoned the school to complain.

1. I loved Lego as a child (still do!) and collected all the Harry Potter sets - I’d spend ages building them and put a different model on display in my room each week. Came home from school one day to find that my parents had sorted out our toy room, dumped all of my Lego into carrier bags and binned the boxes because they were taking up too much room 😭😭😭 Some of those sets are worth an absolute fortune now, but only with original boxes of course. It’s something that I can’t get over and I remind my mum on a regular basis how idiotic they were. Luckily she accepts that it was a huge mistake and has had the decency to apologise!

My mum lent a neighbour my first communion dress after i’d used it for her daughter to wear as she was a fairy in the local gala day.

She dyed it orange! At age 8 i was gutted and 46 year later i still am when i think about it!!!
Apart from the fact she done that, all the other fairies were in white dresses, so why???

@TheSecondMrsAshwell

I’ve got two...it was the silver jubilee year and we had to colour in a picture of the Queen for a competition in all her regalia. I remember doing it so carefully and loved doing it. The head of the parish councils daughter won and hers was so bad, over the lines and everything! 😂 the rest of us didn’t get a look in. I should maybe let that go it was over 40 years ago...

But in miniature, you've described every Blue Peter drawing competition ever. I realised there was no point whatsoever entering when a girl was on telly with the presenter saying "you'll recognise Sarah* from the last competition. Her father is a graphic designer and her mother has exhibited at the Royal Academy" and it was so obvious that six tear old had had help. My entry was a pile of catshit on top of dogshit, but the 13 year old's entry that was brilliant was passed over made it for me. Yeah, do one of those apology videos.

As for all the horror stories about teachers, I'm saving the link to this thread for when I come across a thread where someone says why are you having a go at teachers? They work hard and are fluffy. Have a gander at this - especially the PP who realised she couldn't trust adults after she trusted a teacher to tell the truth when the other teacher wrongfully bollocked a child.

Was at a funeral for a schoolmate recently and chatting to some of those I'd been at school with, I discovered that our Biology teacher used to regularly "lose" write ups of practical experiments. - she did it to me and then my DSis... Until she met my DM. She did it to me and I had to re-do the experiments, but when she said my DSis had missed the same experiments, my DM said "funny that. You said the same about the older Mrs Ashwell. " Oddly enough, she found the write-upsthe next day. She'd put them away........ with the papers of all the other people she'd wanted to fuck over.

Yes, Mrs W, I'm looking at you.

Sounds like Mrs White from my school, who mysteriously lost my school work.

In an inter-school quiz (probably in year 6 - 1999/2000) I was asked “who lives at number 11 Downing street?”

I answered “Tony Blair” which was actually correct because he had chosen to live there instead of number 10 because he had a family and needed the space. They marked me wrong (obviously looking for the answer “Chancellor of the Exchequer”, which I did know is the person who usually lives there).

We lost the round and were out of the whole competition because of it. 😬

A teacher thought I was a girl in my class who I didn't like. She shouted her name repeatedly at me (I had my back to her) until the kids told her who it actually was. Other girl had straggly blonde hair and I was morbidly offended that she thought I could possibly be her, what with my flowing locks. Ha! I also hate it whenever someone gets my name wrong and calls me Nicola. Which also happened to be the girl's name, by coincidence.

@Biscuitbear8

In an inter-school quiz (probably in year 6 - 1999/2000) I was asked “who lives at number 11 Downing street?”

I answered “Tony Blair” which was actually correct because he had chosen to live there instead of number 10 because he had a family and needed the space. They marked me wrong (obviously looking for the answer “Chancellor of the Exchequer”, which I did know is the person who usually lives there).

We lost the round and were out of the whole competition because of it. 😬

I had a very similar experience in a school quiz- got marked wrong for writing a celebrity answer as their full name- eg by calling them Margaret (legal name) instead of Maggie (which they went by). Still pissed off 20+ years later!

That no one believed me or supported me when my child was first being assessed for autism. All my friends and family apart from one were dismissive and disbelieving and suggested or accused me of using it as an excuse for his "bad behaviour". I was totally alone, even his Dad accused me of having "Munchausens". It was a lonely and terrifying time. After he was diagnosed people got on board and started making allowances but they never really apologised and I have never forgiven or forgotten. It has affected my relationships with many people. Some try to rewrite history and claim they were on board but I never let them off the hook. Just look at them like 🤨.

Mine was from when I had just started year 5. It was a middle school so we had only been at the school about a month. All the girls in the year were called for an assembly in the gym where it was announced that someone had written a horrible message about a fellow pupil on the walls of the yr 5 girls toilets. We were in there for an hour having to sit in silence while the head of year called certain people outside the room to talk to them about what they knew. We couldn’t hear what was happening and my friend and I were mildly interested simply due to the fact we were out of class and there was some drama.
Suddenly my name gets called. A bit confused I got up (in front of 75 other girls) and walked out with the head of year. Once outside the door she starts absolutely screaming at me about how she knows I had done it, what a horrible thing to do, this is not how we behave at this school etc etc. I was absolutely dumbstruck. I had no idea who had written on the wall but I was being shouted at in a corridor of a school I had only attended for five weeks! I didn’t know what to say so I kept stuttering I didn’t do it, it wasn’t me. I was mortified.
I was told to go back into the gym where every girl was staring at me open mouthed as they had obviously heard every word. No one else had been shouted at and I was the last to be ‘interviewed’ so clearly I was the main suspect.
Anyway, I was shaking I was so shocked and upset and we then trooped back to our classroom. We had been sat down for five minutes when a message came up that me and two other girls had to go to stand outside the deputy heads office. Now the deputy head was to this day, the scariest man I have ever met. He scared the parents. So I was terrified.
We went down and a couple of other girls were there too, all of us petrified because this giant of a man who had this terrifying reputation was calling us in to his office one by one to talk to us (we were 9).
When I got called in he asked me what I knew. I said nothing. Today is the first I’ve heard of this. He wrote my name on a piece of paper with a big question mark. I could see everyone else had notes next to there’s of what they had said to him but I couldn’t say anything as I genuinely didn’t know! So it clearly looked like I wasn’t cooporating.
We went back to class and as they obviously couldn’t prove I had done it, I never heard anymore about it but the damage had been done. Every child and teacher thought it was me so in their eyes I was guilty.

About a year later I brought it up to the girl who the nasty message was written about (ironically we were and always had been quite good friends). She said they found out a few weeks later a girl in year seven had done it.

I was furious! No one told me, no one ever apologied and worse everyone still believed I had done it because they hadn’t made public that this older girl was the culprit.

This was in 1993 and every time I think of that head of year and the way she screamed at me it makes my blood boil. Nasty bitch.
My parents were very much in the camp of them teacher is always right’ and when I told them about this (which would have been so out of character, I was no angel but I drew the line at bullying graffiti) they simply shrugged and said if I didn’t do it I had nothing to worry about. Yeah as that makes the injustice better. I still bring it up now that I was so disappointed they didn’t go into school and at least question what had happened.

In infant school I had a horrible teacher who didn’t like me - my paintings never went on the wall - once it was because I painted too many fingers on a persons hand, so did other children but Hateful Teacher said I was better than that so it wasn’t my best work and wouldn’t put it up. She was just mean. But the worst was when I had a dentist appointment so I got into school late - Hateful Teacher knew why but made me miss play time to catch up on the worksheets they’d done first thing. I was 5 ffs. Horrible woman.

I was studying to be a massage therapist, which is a one year part time course with both anatomy and physiology, and practical exams. All the way through the course I was head of the class both in theory & practical. I aced the written exam, despite there being loads of questions that weren't really that relevant to the course.

Then came the day of the practical. I had already got my own massage couch which happened to be lilac in colour, and all my covers, towels etc matched it - note there was NO restriction on colour, and most of the others had slightly mixes with white & cream. I was the only person with a male "patient", my partner at the time. I know I answered all the questions the examiner asked me correctly while continuing the treatment.

Everyone (including our teacher, who had been in the exam room with us) was shocked to discover that I was the ONLY person in the class to have failed the practical exam. Some of the reasons given were totally invalid, e.g. my trousers (bought from a therapy clothing supplier) apparently would collect lint from towels - whereas the girl wearing VELVET trousers got away with that. And that I was wearing "outdoor" shoes - I was wearing those flat lace up leather "jazz" shoes, the guy on the course had gym shows.

Clearly I passed the retake, and the (different) examiner asked my tutor afterwards what on earth I'd done in the first exam to fail as I was "excellent". On hearing who had been the first examiner, she said that woman was known for failing good students, at least one or two per sitting, "as a lesson to people who were over confident"

"...guy on the course had gym SHOES"

Some of these are heartbreaking

Year 4, early 80s.

A girl on my table had a lovely pencil sharpener - pink in the shape of a chicken. I asked here where she had bought it and she told me the name of a local shop near school. One day after school, I was walking with my mum and she treated me to the same one.

But then this girl's sharpener got lost or went missing and of course it looked extremely suspicious that I had exactly the same one in my pencil case and it looked like I nicked it. I tried to explain that my mum had bought me the same one but no-one believed me.

@TheLoneMariner

In primary school a girl called Emily bullied me something rotten. She made my life a misery for a year. One day I upset her (I think, all I remember is her crying to the teacher about me but I'm not even sure I did anything!) and I was seriously told off and told to stop being a bully!

I can sympathise with this. My dd was constantly bullied at school by a girl smaller and 6 months younger than her. When she stood up to her, the girl went and told the teacher and my dd got into trouble for “a big girl like you picking on someone so much smaller and younger!” I spoke to the headteacher about it but he refused to accept that it was my dd who was being bullied again quoting how much younger and smaller the —little bitch— other girl was!

My younger dd was 2 classes below. A few days later she saw her ds having her face slapped and being punched and kicked by the little bully during morning break, so she went over and smacked the girl on the face and kicked her, sending the bully running away crying! I was called into the school and the ht told me that my younger dd had been bullying and hitting the other girl and he expected me to punish her. I turned round and said “how could my much younger and smaller dd bully someone so much bigger and older? After all that was what he had said to me when I had complained about the girl!” I actually said that I wouldn’t be punishing her and if he had applied the same guidelines in the first place, when my older dd was being bullied, this wouldn’t have happened!

I don’t condone bullying, but I was proud of my younger dd sticking up for her ds, but was, and still am annoyed about how the school treated the issue. The head teacher was a social snob and there were many other instances when he stood up for the ‘rich’ kids. Once a friend of mine’s son was pushed down and had an orange ground into his face. The ht’s response was that (name) was a nice child and wouldn’t do anything like this!

Another one - when I was about 9/10/11 I often got the bus home by myself and sometimes out and about at weekends too. In those days you paid the driver and got a paper bus ticket. I usually kept my ticket until I got off the bus.

But on one occasion I was playing with the ticket, folding it up and during the journey I wedged it into the seat in front of me (no idea why). Of course it had to be that day that the inspector got in and checked everyone's tickets. I tried to explain that I had a ticket and tried to retrieve it but he didn't believe me and gave me a horrible dirty look. I think I offered to pay my fare again. I was so upset at being accused of lying that as soon as I got home and saw my mum I burst into tears.

Oh another one -

Year 3, early 80s. I had a horrible bitchy teacher who had taken a dislike to me. I had a yellow Snoopy lunchbox with a matching flask - very popular in those days and I certainly wasn't the only child to have one. I was very proud of it. However a lot of girls in my class had a plain plastic tupperware box for their sandwiches.

One day, everyone was packing up their things at the end of the day, the teacher noticed my lunchbox and said in a horrible sneery tone - 'Oh I saw those lunch boxes in the shop and they cost £X (made to sound very expensive and extravagant)'. She said this in front of everyone. One of the girls said 'you must be rich bendmeover'. I immediately felt so embarrassed I wanted the ground to swallow me up. Why she picked on me I had no idea.

My SiL visited my home two days after my mother's funeral. I was still numb with shock and in no mood for company, but in that condition I probably wouldn't have noticed if Hannibal Lecter had trotted in for dinner bearing a home-bake. That was, until she started having a long, emotional conversation with her mother right under my nose, snivelling 'ohhhh, what would I DOOOO, if I didn't have my mummy to talk to?'

Mine was barely cold.

I believe I saw what she really was that day and it was a case of once seen couldn't unsee. She's since confirmed this impression in some of her dealings with other people, but there's no risk at all it will ever happen again with me. I've not had a relationship with her in any form since. And I consider this no loss whatsoever.

As so many of these memories are of school days I was reminded about this story on a thread (15 Jun 2020) on Gransnet called, "Has anyone attended a school reunion" - on page 3 Craftycat writes about her friend meeting her past tormentor and it's very satisfying.

I joined the army two weeks after my 17th birthday but just before I left for training, I got a holiday job at a well known sports shop (which makes you buy your own branded uniform which I'm also still salty about). Back then, I was so painfully shy and anxious that people mistook me for being stuck up. After a few weeks, I thought I was getting on with the other people that worked there although I was still very quiet and didn't initiate conversation much. Well apparently I wasn't getting on with them as much as I thought because I overheard a small snippet of conversation between two of the regular workers discussing me leaving to join the army in a few weeks which ended in "well I hope she dies". I never returned after that shift.

These school ones have made me remember some
I was at secondary between 93-98, so not really that long ago.
In year 8, we had a cooking teacher. Most of us hated her guts. She was a bitch. We called her Wiggy as her hair looked like a wig. She dressed like something from the 70s.
Anyway, two times she was a bitch to me.
The first was in her class. She said we could chose a recipe to show off. The lady who used to watch me for my parents the odd time used to show me how to cook fusion food, as she was Jamaican and her husband Indian. She taught me how to make lamb samosa, as it was really simple and could be made in the space of a lesson.
All cooked, and we all added our things to the big centre table, for her to try, and for the class. It clearly said they were lamb. Everyone tries one and says how delicious they are. Girl who I got on with grabs one, bites into it and says "what are these again". So I said, lamb.
She immediately runs out the room. Apparently she is veggie. First I'd heard of it.
Teacher starts absolutely screaming at me and says despite them being good, she was giving me a fail as they had been given to a vegetarian.

The next year, year 9, I was in the girls loo. Lots of older girls in there smoking as it was lunchtime. They had thrown the butts in the loo. Just as they are walking out, she walks in. I come out the loo and again she starts going utterly mental at me, shouting about the cigarettes and telling me I had a months lunch and after school detention. I hadn't done sod all!
I was quite a nerd and would never dare say a word back, but my far more gobby mate (still to this day) went and spoke to the head of lower school (a gem of a teacher) and explained what had happened. He cancelled the detentions and made her apologise. Didn't stop her grabbing my back pack strap to get in my ear that "I will be watching you you little cow". Vile tart.
Then we had the PE teacher. About 20 stone she was. Hardly an advert for PE. I was tall and skinny, really quite underweight, but whippet fast. I was on the school team. Came 2nd in the inter schools cup.
On the end of term, all the sporting achievements were read out. Al the boys stuff. The netball. Basketball. No bloody mention of my achievement. Never got my certificate either.

I feel your pain, I went to a girls' school run by the Sisters of Mercy (not the 80s band)

Imagine being taught the ways of the world by Andrew Eldritch! [faints]

Reminds me of another one of mine: I was once sent home from school for dressing as a Goth. Well the school dress-code did say grey, navy or black ...

I have a recent one.
DH and I have been watching Supernatural on Amazon Prime. We're halfway through season 11. Amazon have removed Supernatural from their prime streaming and want to change per episode... 2 days after this happened and I'm still sulking.