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Daft things you believed as a child

Posted: 27 Sep 2017, 22:53
by IceMaiden
This is just a bit of fun, I hope threads like this are allowed on here and I'm not breaking any forum rules.

What are the daft things you really believed were true as a child?

I believed that sheep had two legs shorter on one side so they could stand on the mountainside without falling off! :oops:

I also believed the school science technician was a ghost as she was always dressed in a long white coat, never spoke or made a noise and seemed to get from one end of the science lab block to the other by going through the walls, which she also seemed to disappear completely into before reappearing somewhere else. I was terrified of her, I used to spend my break time watching her from a safe distance 'glide' soundlessly inbetween the rooms or vanish and turn up in another corridor. I eventually found out there were doors inbetween each room with a storage section behind it and another door at the back of that so you could walk right through the lab block and also get to each equipment store without disturbing a class, but for two years I was absolutely convinced she was a ghost!

Re: Daft things you believed as a child

Posted: 28 Sep 2017, 02:10
by Rob Houghton
Nice idea for a thread! :-D

I believed quite a few daft things. One I remember was that I thought the baker who always called at our door when I was very young (pre-school) with his big basket full of bread and cakes (some were Kipling cakes in boxes) was actually Mr Kipling himself! I actually thought this for quite a few years afterwards too! :lol:

I also believed for some strange reason that I was adopted, and that my mom and dad were just pretending to be my real mom and dad - not sure why I thought this, except I'd read a lot of EB books about orphans, maybe, lol!

When I was about five, I also went through quite a long period of believing I would die if I didn't consciously keep breathing - although most of the time I forgot to consciously breathe anyway and still survived, lol! ;-)

Lastly, I believed that if you threw a book, then it would kill the book fairy who lived inside. This was something our teacher told us aged about 6 and it is still something I think of today! A good way to prevent children throwing books (unless they are the type of children who would like to see a dead fairy, of course!!)

:D

Re: Daft things you believed as a child

Posted: 28 Sep 2017, 02:16
by Rob Houghton
I also believed that my first teacher, in reception class, must be someone famous. We used to do singing and when she sat down at the piano and actually started playing it, as I'd never seen anyone in real life playing a piano, but only on television, I was convinced we must have a famous 'star' as a teacher.

I also thought she had made up the songs we sang. One was 'Mud, mud, glorious mud' - which I was sure she had made up just for us to sing. I didn't realise it was a proper song! :lol:

Re: Daft things you believed as a child

Posted: 28 Sep 2017, 06:36
by Courtenay
When I was little, reading books about outer space and the planets, I assumed for a while that humankind must already have visited all or most of the planets in our solar system — how else would we know so much about them and have pictures of them? I was really disappointed when I realised we've only ever got as far as our own moon yet and indeed have never met aliens from another planet in real life!! :( :wink:

Re: Daft things you believed as a child

Posted: 28 Sep 2017, 11:26
by snugglepot
I thought the soldiers fighting in the Vietnam war were fighting gorillas because the TV news used to show them wearing hats with greenery sticking out, and mentioning that they were in the jungle. The news readers, also, talked about "Guerrilla Warfare" and the enemy being called "The Viet Cong" which reminded me of the character King Kong.
I used to wonder why on earth they were in the jungle fighting the gorillas.

Re: Daft things you believed as a child

Posted: 28 Sep 2017, 11:35
by Rob Houghton
lol! I always imagined gorillas fighting each other!

I also genuinely did believe what people told me as a kid - that it was possible to dig a hole deep enough to reach Australia! :lol:

Re: Daft things you believed as a child

Posted: 28 Sep 2017, 12:32
by Anita Bensoussane
Love your "gorilla warfare" account, Snugglepot! :lol:

My sister and I also believed we could dig to Australia, Rob - using plastic seaside spades!

When I was at the age of reading fairy stories, I genuinely thought there would come a day when my mum would wrap some bread and cheese in a handkerchief and I would have to tie it to the end of a stick, sling it over my shoulder and "go out into the wide world to seek my fortune". I imagined that was how life as an adult began!

Re: Daft things you believed as a child

Posted: 28 Sep 2017, 12:54
by Courtenay
Rob Houghton wrote:I also genuinely did believe what people told me as a kid - that it was possible to dig a hole deep enough to reach Australia! :lol:
Anita Bensoussane wrote:My sister and I also believed we could dig to Australia, Rob - using plastic seaside spades!
And you expected everyone would be walking around upside down when you got there, too? :wink:

I'm not sure where we in Australia are supposed to believe we can dig to... China, possibly! :lol:

Re: Daft things you believed as a child

Posted: 28 Sep 2017, 12:58
by Rob Houghton
Courtenay wrote:And you expected everyone would be walking around upside down when you got there, too? :wink:
Definitely! And there were kangaroos bouncing around everywhere, and people throwing boomerangs. :-D

Re: Daft things you believed as a child

Posted: 28 Sep 2017, 16:25
by KEVP
There is a whole website about this

http://www.Iusedtobelieve.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Re: Daft things you believed as a child

Posted: 28 Sep 2017, 19:11
by Rob Houghton
I also used to believe that 'Toad In the Hole' was made with real toads! Unbelievably, I'd never tried Toad in the Hole until I was about 36! :-D

Many of my school friends would have 'bubble and squeak' for Monday dinner when they got home. I was always jealous. We never had exotic things like that at our house. I fully believed 'Bubble and Squeak' was the most exotic dish ever created - and I felt very hard done by! :lol:

Re: Daft things you believed as a child

Posted: 28 Sep 2017, 23:19
by Courtenay
Rob Houghton wrote:I also used to believe that 'Toad In the Hole' was made with real toads! Unbelievably, I'd never tried Toad in the Hole until I was about 36! :-D
:lol: I'd never seen toad in the hole while I was growing up in Australia, but my first vicarious encounter with it was via Roald Dahl's Danny the Champion of the World, in which there's a description of a particularly delicious version of it. So fortunately I wasn't shocked when I moved to Britain and found "toad in the hole" on the menu where I work!! Mind you, I've heard tell that some of our non-British staff have taken it literally... :shock: :wink: (When we do have it coming up for lunch, I enjoy asking the cook jokingly if she's caught the toads yet. :P We get the most delicious sausages from the local butcher, so it's always a treat.)

Re: Daft things you believed as a child

Posted: 29 Sep 2017, 06:15
by Wolfgang
Rob Houghton wrote:I also used to believe that 'Toad In the Hole' was made with real toads! Unbelievably, I'd never tried Toad in the Hole until I was about 36! :-D
I don't think it's that strange considering the fact that the British (or English) used to call the French "Frog-Eaters". It's the same kind of diet ;-).

Re: Daft things you believed as a child

Posted: 29 Sep 2017, 17:16
by pete9012S
I truly believed that unlike everyone else, I would never grow up and grow old ... Time has proved that I was very wrong indeed!

Re: Daft things you believed as a child

Posted: 29 Sep 2017, 17:19
by Courtenay
Didn't know you'd grown up, Pete. :wink: