To ask for your cringeworthy childhood memories?

[Forwardthinkinglobster]

The sort of ones that pop into your mind decades later and you still stop dead and think “Oh god!”

Mine was when me and my sister were aged about 10 and 8. We were young, innocent and firmly into toilet humour/funny body parts. Evidently, we thought it would be hilarious to make our (pretty straight-laced) grandma a hand made card which harked “HAPPY WILLY DAY” emblazoned on the front surrounded by some pretty terrible drawings… you get the idea. I still remember the initial smile on her face when we handed it to her in a cute envelope, which immediately sunk to a stern frown when she pulled the card out of the envelope!

Argh!

I went to America for a holiday as a child and came back, not with an accent as such, but a definite attempt to emphasise certain words in an American way (think ICE cream instead of ice CREAM). How my parents put up with this affectation I do not know but they didn’t really mention it.
However, a boy I liked said I sounded like “a twat” so I phased it out.

We used to stay at a field centre in our penultimate year of primary school. Emboldened by the chance of scene, I can distinctly remember asking my male teacher (who wasn't attractive so no misplaced crush) whether he had a double or single bed at home in front of all my friends. More than once.

Eventually the poor man gave in and said he had a double bed. WTF was I thinking?

Fainting in front of the entire year group during year 8 assembly.... 🫣

This is so sad. Where we were literally everything was second hand so nobody cared! I've done the same with my kids and almost all of their Christmas presents have been second-hand it never bothers them even as teenagers.

As kids, my sibling and I would press neighbours' door bell and run away. We were caught once, the lady complained and we got serious telling off.

This is my favourite 😅

I was playing in the garden of my brother's friend when I was about 10 years old. The family had about 6 children and prams to match.
They also had a dog that shit on the lawn where we were playing so I decided to drive one of the pushchairs through the dog shit several times. One of the smaller children decided to copy me and got asked to stop by his mother that had seen us.

Me and my best friend were bored during the summer holidays (we must have been about 13??) and wanted money to go shopping in our local town centre so we handmade "leaflets" which we distributed through the doors of my neighbours houses (this was clearly a time when kids were left on their own all day and had to be creative 😂)

The leaflets said "We (Starlight and X) are looking for summer jobs. We will do anything for money...".

Not just one but several of our neighbours came round when my mum was home from work to tell her what we had done and to kindly point out we might want to rephrase our advertisements 😂

Oh god this has just reminded me of loudly telling my primary class about my dad's friend Master Bates. Did not get the joke at all.

Also a joke about Uranus. That one came from my older brother. I had no clue.

My family are arses in many ways!

When I was in primary school we were learning about the origins of common suffixes such as what other languages they come from, such as 'ology' comes from Greek and means 'to study'. We then had to write a list of as many words as we could think of from that origin. I was interested to learn the suffix 'graphy' and proudly began my list with the word pornography! I don't know where I had heard the word before but I thought the teacher would be really impressed I had one no one else had thought of. I still cringe 30 years later!

I'm crying at Cunt Stubble 😂😂😂

I went to a CofE primary. No idea why as family are atheist.

Every day we'd have a morning assembly with hymns and with my dad's encouragement I'd replace any reference to Jesus with Brian. With interjections whenever there was any reference to the 'son of god' as 'he's not the son of god, hes a very naughty boy!'

As in Life of Brian. Looking back I cringe.

I’ve got so many … I was a very sensitive but socially awkward child. This was probably the worst…

When I was about 8 I went on a coach trip to a stately home with my parents. We were just finishing our tea when the tour guide started chivvying people to get back on the bus. This made me anxious so I told my parents I’d go ahead while they finished up. I took a wrong turn almost immediately and got horrendously lost in the grounds of the stately home. Then it started pouring with rain and the light started to go. Soaked and totally shitting myself I managed to find the main road and flagged down a car ( thankfully it had a nice family in it not a murderous predator). They got me back to the car park where the coach was parked but it was over an hour later and I had to do the walk of shame up the aisle of the bus. Because I was late, a much anticipated tour through a pretty Cotswold Village on the way back was cancelled. Everyone was miffed and my face burned with shame the whole way home. 😩

Running to catch a Routemaster bus, the ones with a pole and no door, in school uniform and ridiculous platforms. Flung myself into the air to grab the pole and climb aboard.
Reader, I missed.

The school essay one is magical! Dish / cold etc!

Oh that’s fabulous!

Cunt Stubble 😆 I’ll remember that for ever

It's a hot summer day in 1996. I'm 9 years old.

In the town centre there's a pedestrianised area, and today there's a fruit and veg market with produce set up on folding tables – the kind people prep wallpaper on.

I'm standing on a fairly steep street next to a folding table laden high with crates of tomatoes – the big salad kind. For some reason, the seller isn't there, so my mum says to me "Wait there until the lady gets back." and takes the chance to nip off to another stall in the meantime.

I turn back toward the stall, and – I still have no idea how it happened – knock the leg of the table so the whole thing folds down and collapses.

I watch, utterly paralysed in horror, as approximate 500 massive tomatoes take off rolling down the hill. They're bouncing between street signs, people are stepping on them – I cannot BELIEVE how many tomatoes there are, or how far they're rolling.

I have no idea what I'm supposed to do (to be fair, I still wouldn't know!), so I just watch them roll... and then I watch what feels like the eyes of my entire town follow the trail of tomatoes up the hill to look at me.

The image is BURNED into my memory and I still turn appropriately tomato-red whenever I think about it...

That’s hilarious 😂 ( the slap, not the shag! )

Having actually worked in markets selling tomatoes, I have to tell you if that had been my stall, after the initial shock I would have laughed and laughed and laughed, and not been cross with you one jot.
Then I would have bought a much better table.

In primary school we would sometimes do little impromptu talent shows in the last half hour of the day instead of a story. I remember one afternoon me and my mate stood and proudly belted out Steamy Windows by Tina Turner without a clue what the song was about. Our teacher just said well done and we got an applause but now I know what the lyrics are about I cringe 😬

Oh god so many I'll have to come back but this is one of the ones that really stands out

I was on holiday in wales and me and my cousin met a boy in the next holiday cottage. and made friends with him and we both fancied him (as much as you can fancy a boy when you're ten!)

For reasons I do not know, I spoke in an "Australian" accent every time we were with him.

In my defence it was the 90s and everyone was obsessed with Neighbours and home and away 🤦‍♀️

On holiday in Spain with my parents and grandparents and was on the balcony looking below

A load of bulls rushed past and it was quite the scene!

I raced back into the living area and shouted 'there's a load of bulls in the street all fucking and biting!'

I had meant to say 'bucking and fighting'

Or when we were sat watching tv - again my grandparents were there - and the news came on. Lead story about the hunt for a rapist complete with photo fit

I pipe up with ' that looks like you dad!'

My friend and I - aged about 8 - had an old tape recorder. You could press "record" and then sing along to it and then play it back to listen to.

Both of us were dying to be grown up and knowledgeable about sex, relationships etc. My friend also listened to much cooler music than I did (her mum listened to Radio 1 and they had a CD player; my parents listened to Radio 2 and got no further technology-wise than a cassette player).

Anyway, for god knows what reason, we decided to record a "rap" about sex. I distinctly remember some of the lyrics "into bed one night...out the other side a pregnant woman!", all whilst my friend, in the background repeated "sexy baby, s-s-s-sexy baby." We finished the rap with a sexualised "uh" sound - presumably because that's what we thought grown ups did.

And then we played the tape to our parents (my friend's mum was happily chatting to my mother in our living room).

They were not amused.