What are you still salty about?

[AmberTurnerCo]

Years later

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

I started a new school in Year 3 and was really looking forward to joining the choir. There were two - a choir which anyone could join, and Monday choir which was auditioned.

When the list was put up for Monday choir another girl came back to the classroom and told me I hadn't got in and it would teach me not to think so much of myself. I was so devastated I didn't bother to go and check. The following week the music teacher came and told me off for not bothering to turn up. I had got in after all, but the music teacher wouldn't let me back in because she said I was careless.

I was always good at English, an avid reader, it was my strength. 2nd year of primary school we did English work books and I was far ahead in my progress and had completed up to level 10. Somehow my work books got misplaced in the classroom and my teacher wouldn't believe me when I told her I had completed level 10. She made me repeat levels 5-10 again, which I did, very aggrieved. Later that week my lost work books were found, having fallen down the side of a cabinet in the classroom so I happily took them to my teacher to show her I had been telling the truth. She dismissed it and pretended it hadn't happened, saying she didn't want to know
I will always feel cross about that, that an adult couldn't get off their high horse and admit they were wrong!

I was about 5 and it was a blistering hot day at school. We had a supply teacher who let us fill a cup from the classroom tap to drink. Mine had a crack in it so I couldn't get a single mouthful.
She pulled me backwards away from the sink by my plait and said I was a 'greedy little girl' and that there was 'always one who spoilt it for everyone else'.
I spent the rest of the day so thirsty and terrified of her. Still pissed off about it now!

Silver Jubilee 1977. My big sister wanted a crown for the street party so my parents cut up a football of mine and sprayed it silver. It was probably a bit deflated or something but not the point. I was 6 and mad. Still a little salty

The time at play group when I was about 3 and shit my pants. The bitch in charge of my group made me go down the slide, I told her I didn't want to and I mean she must have smelt it. Went down said slide and a tidal wave of shit ensued upon it.

Then told off like I was some kind of animal for not saying. I did, dickhead!

In primary school, I was school librarian along with my best friend. We were given a book with Dewey Decimal codes and asked to code all the books. We used to spend our lunch hours making piles of books by subject and assigning codes and adding stickers. It was a huge job and as an adult, I now think a bizarrely strange job to assign to two ten year olds( it was the 70s). Anyway, just before the Christmas holidays, I got measles and another girl stood in for me for a week. My friend and the stand in were given a box of Roses each as a thank you 😳. I think my friend was madder than me and that is saying something... and yes I’m still mad!

My mum wouldn’t buy my anything luminous for a party. Not even a head band or wrist bands. Imagine the shame of going to a birthday disco in the 80s and having NO LUMINOUS CLOTHING. I was about 8.
I remember her picking me up and she was giving a lift home to a dorky boy called Brett. I got in the car and mum said “how was the party?” And I said Rubbish! Everyone else had something luminous! And Brett goes: yeah including me! And showed me his luminous yellow socks.

Even Brett.

There's two...

1. Being part of the country dancing/maypole team in primary school. Only to have to sit on the base of the maypole on the actual performance to 'stop it moving'. Why me? Why not put sandbags on it or something?

1. Coming home from school to find my mother had given ALL my Sindy stuff to the girl next door. I had LOTS of it. It was all I wanted for Christmas and birthdays. I was now too old for it but I was thinking of boxing it up and saving it. She didn't even ask me, she just gave it away.

So many of these, mostly from primary school in the 70s/ early 80s when children weren't considered to have much autonomy and had to respect their elders and betters even when they were WRONG!

At a PE lesson playing rounders (this was in a public park). We were allowed to bring skipping ropes etc from home to play with while we waited for our turn to bat. I'd brought my favourite one. When I was called up to bat I was worried about putting my rope on the grass which was quite long as I was afraid I wouldn't find it again. The headmistress who was giving the lesson yelled at me to not be so stupid and put it down. Sure enough I could not find it again and was really upset. To add insult to injury when I told my mum later she smacked me for "always being careless and losing things". I burn with injustice remembering that!

At my own birthday parties I wasn't allowed to win any of the prizes because that was "a waste of money". I was incensed to observe at other friends' parties that the birthday girl was allowed to win prizes

My mum was a talented seamstress and handmade our school summer dresses which were much nicer than the ones from the uniform shop. Other mums noticed this and asked her to make them for their daughters too. She always agreed. She made summer dresses for five other girls plus me and my sister. The others got 3 each. My sister and I got one each as mum was sick of sewing by then and/ or had run out of time. The one dress had to last the while week and we'd get in trouble if it got grubby! One year she did a prototype of a new style with buttons instead of a zip. When she showed it to the other mums they said "oh no, our girls will struggle to change for PE without a zip" so she made them all zipped ones. Muggins got the prototype button dress. I'm a bit dyspraxic and really struggled with buttons when I was little. So that was rubbish 😂

I overheard the teacher at primary talking to another teacher about me and my sister. He used the term, 'It's the way they are brought up'. We weren't even bad kids but we were lumped in to the 'locals' group as opposed to 'the rich kids' group so he could probably have been talking about us as a group. I told my DMum and she went to the school creating merry hell. I was frogmarched to the staffroom and interrogated and I had no choice but to say I had made it up when I hadn't as I feared I would be booted out otherwise. DMum had severe MH issues and our family barely functioned as it was so I lied. One of the teachers in the meeting was my rock. My relationship with her ended that day. She never even looked at me afterwards.
I'm still bitter about it to this day. The teacher that said it was abusive generally and this sort of thing was normal for him. If I knew where he is buried I would shit on his grave

When I was a child I was VERY scared of dogs. Even ones I knew. My Aunty had a dog and every time we visited, my Mum would make cakes and make me carry them in from the car.

Consequently Aunty's dog would make a beeline for me as I entered and jump up. When I panicked, Auntie would say 'well what do you expect, you've got food'.

I DIDN'T FUCKING ASK TO CARRY THE CAKES!!!!!

It happened every time and she still mentions it now - I am 50!

A few years ago now, my flatmates boyfriend came to visit her for the weekend and the three of us were in the kitchen (I owned the flat). He stood up and announced he was going to make a coffee and said "Do you want a coffee (flatmate)?" Flatmate said yes and he stood up to make them both a coffee I was waiting for him to offer me one too but he never did. I passive aggressively made myself one after he had made theirs and he looked pretty sheepish.

Ross Barkley going to Chelsea.

Nextdoors mum stole of my child.
Because her child was jealous.
I called the police and got the items back.
The mum pretended my child was a thief.
So when she went on about it years later I published on Facebook the police report and crime number.

Cookery class 1988. Made a steamed syrup pudding.

Class bitch had her pudding go wrong - it didn’t rise. She then swapped it for mine. When I protested to the teacher, teacher cut both in half and stuck them together. I went home with a disfigured pudding.

Teacher knew I was a good kid. Still salty.

I was reading aloud to the class, aged 10, from "Daddy-Long-Legs" by Jean Webster and pronounced the place-name "Connecticut" correctly, with the middle "c" silent. This not being the US, I doubt there would have been another child in the school who would have known, but my father was born there. The teacher obviously didn't know either, as she "corrected" me, and I felt it was both rude and show-offy to argue, so I left it at that. Still not forgotten though!

I've never been able to write without making slips of the pen and having to cross things out, even now. In our final year of primary school, we were all entered for a national spelling certificate (not in the UK). It was a long test with about 100 words. There was no preparation for it - nothing to learn in advance - and you only got the certificate if your entry was 100% correct. There was a rule that no alterations were allowed - obviously to prevent "forgery". I was known to be the best speller in the class and got every word correct, but hadn't been able to avoid correcting my writing. My best friend was the only child in the year who got the certificate.

I was 8 and a kid in my class lost his workbook. The whole class were asked to help him find it. I'd lost mine the week before and it had been put in with the wrong pile accidentally (maths books were same colour as the books for English, for example, so these mix-ups did happen) so I went to the other subject books, looked, and found it. Handed it straight over, I was having a really rough time at school at that point and I was very excited as thought I'd get a sticker (they had ones for helpfulness), which meant house points. No, teacher loudly, in front of the whole class, accused me of stealing the book "WHY did you steal George's book, @toastfiend, that WASN'T KIND, was it?" I hadn't stolen the bloody book, and it wasn't something I'd ever had form for doing either, so I have no idea where she got that from. I defended myself and she told me not to lie. She was an awful, witch of a woman. I was being dreadfully badly bullied throughout the entire year she was my teacher and she did absolutely fucking nothing about it, except for loudly accusing me of thieving other children's books in front of the bullies, which obviously made things so much better... My parents moved me to a new school midway through the year in the end as multiple meetings with her amounted to no help whatsoever. 20 years on and I'm still angry about it. If I ever saw her again I don't think I'd be able to hold back from confronting her about it.

That my 9 year old self lent my mum some money, and because I didn’t get it back in time I didn’t meet the threshold in my N&P children’s savings account to qualify for Abbey National shares when they took it over. Gutted.

Two girls when I was 5 give me a piece of paper they had drawn on and asking me if I could screw it up for them and put it in the bin next to me. I did what they asked. One then immediately shouted "teacher!! Teacher!!!! YouJust has just screwed up my work!!" and she started fake crying. Teacher shouted at me "you stupid, horrid girl!", wouldn't listen when I said "but they asked me to!" snatched up the balled up paper and took it our of the room to iron it flat. The girls burst out laughing as soon as she had left. I started to cry, the teacher came back and looked at me in disgust, "why on earth are YOU crying?".

Ooo this one gets me everytime I think about it

I had one of the original copies of Harry Potter.

The one that is worth a fortune now. I lent it to my aunt..who left it in her car in winter which caused the book to swell and warp.

Oh another one. When I was young, maybe 8 or 9 i really really wanted a silver heart shaped locket and put it on my Christmas list. My godmother decided to buy it for me and she also bought a plainer round locket for my younger sister. Except ... she wrapped them up and mixed up the tags so my sister got my longed for heart shaped locket. Would she swap? Would she buggery! My parents knew what had happened but wouldn't make her swap "because she's only little and she'll be upset". Bloody fuming I was. My parents later bought me a silver heart shaped locket for my 21st birthday but i was somewhat over it by then.

Oh and the videotapes! My parents seemed to think these were like gold bars. They hardly ever agreed to start new ones when they wanted to record something as that was "a waste". It was always stuff me and my sister loved that got taped over. When we protested my mum would be baffled "oh you've watched that a million times" - yes because it was a film we really loved! My mum couldn't seem to recall what it was like to be a child.

I'm not going to lie, I was a bit of a problem at school.

In science, the girl I was say next to (who was seen as being a good girl) knocked a glass slide off the desk by sweeping her arm across and it smashed. I was stood away from the desk at the time. It couldn't have been me. It wasn't me.

The teacher came to ask us what happened and the girl denied it was her. The teacher started going on about how I must have done it, which of course I refuted. At the end of the conversation the teacher looked me cold in the eye and said "Bacon, I do not appreciate being lied to".

It really fucking hurt. I didn't lie. I didn't do it!

Another one; a different girl called a teacher Crab Head (his name was Mr Crabb). He went mental at me and told me not to talk to him again for the rest of my time at school. I was in year 7. I stayed until year 13. I didn't talk to him again.

In freshers week (many moons ago) someone I'd just met asked me to lend him 50p for a pint. I never got it back.....

When I was about 12 my mum used to accuse me of listening in to her phone calls from my phone extension in my bedroom and say that it was because she had so many friends and I had none that I had to listen in to her calls with her friends. I never once did this but she didn't listen and used this to goad me over how I was a weirdo, loner liar etc and bring it into every argument.

A few years later when I was 15 she took me for a meal, something she never normally did. And while I was eating told me she knew I spent £5 she had given me on ciggies and how I was a disgrace and if she caught me she would make me eat them. A family member had recently died of lung cancer and she said I didn't care because I was smoking. I was sat there crying in public, saying I didn't smoke but she just kept on and on. In actual fact I had spent the money on a pull out poster magazine and to this day age 33 I have never even so much as tried a cigarette or any kind of drug. There's more things that happened similar to this, but these things still really upset me.

My dad found a condom out of its packet in my room when I was 14 ish. He insisted it was used as 'he knew what a used one looked like.' It wasn't used - we'd been given them in school in a sex education class and I literally just opened it so as to have a look because I'd never seen one before

My parents point blank refused to believe this explanation and arguments went back and forth and back and forth for so long and they wore me down (literally sat sobbing at the kitchen table in front of them for days this went on) that I ended up making a whole story up about sleeping with a French exchange student! I didn't dare say my boyfriend as they knew him and he came to our house lots.

They then didn't believe this so stormed off to my boyfriend's house to confront him and his parents. He of course denied it because we WEREN'T bloody having sex. He then dumped me because he thought I'd slept with someone else and nothing I said could convince him otherwise.

He was my first boyfriend and I was so in love with him, we'd been together a year and young heartbreak is all. I cried for what felt like weeks and was so upset at all the injustice.