Any interest in a thread about (light-hearted) childhood disappointments?

Sounds like someone’s never been to Legoland…

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Most London attractions are really not good and surrounded by the most hellish areas of cityscape imaginable.

I’ve definitely been places with no expectations and been blown away (national lobster hatchery)

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Feel a bit fortunate to have no been to any of the classics apart from the time I went to London as an easily impressed kid. Must suck having to go to Madam T’s as an adult

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I think I learnt from an early age that attempts to get a soda stream / Subbuteo set / anything American etc were likely to be met with a “no” and a 15 minute lecture on why it would be a waste of money. So I developed a fear of rejection instead, and asked only for things that I would be likely to get.

Took years to get a VCR as my parents were ridiculously stubborn about it

Got a grifter instead of the bmx I asked for the year everyone got one in the wake of ET. Still hurts in a real way , a defining / archetypal moment in my childhood relationship with my mother :joy:

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Solidarity x

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On a lighter note lots of cool looking Star Wars playset type things (Death Star, cantina bar etc) that were advertised on the back of the figures but didn’t seem to exist in the real world

I got a job working construction
For the Johnstown union

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I got really into troll dolls in late primary school and had a few tiny ones that I really liked. I lost them and was really upset but it didn’t occur to me that I could… ask for new ones? They were like 3cm high and can’t have been expensive, I probably had enough pocket money saved.

Mad the way toys were the most exciting thing in the world as a kid but now they’re just a five minute distraction.

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What was your favourite toy?

Nothing immediately springs to mind which makes me think toys weren’t a massive deal to me due to my sophistication but maybe the WWF ring and wrestlers. I once hid a prawn underneath the ring when my dad asked me to try one for the first time, and pretended I’d eaten it and said it was nice.

Very smart move

Our kids found my wife’s ones in a box I pulled down from the roofspace. They’ve got the orange one in that picture and a white swan thing.

I had the orange one! I remember locking a mince pie and an after eight in mine on Christmas Day. Weird the things you remember!

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i never had a Mr Frosty as a kid, so we got one for our daughter. Worst ice crushed I’ve ever used, rather just put the ice in a bag and smack it with a rolling pin. The penguin syrup dispenser is well cute though :penguin:

My dad once told me I could have one pound for every sea shell I picked up from a beach near his friend’s house. I run over, quite excited only to find the tide is all the way in

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I’ve got some bad news for you

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remember being in Derry shopping with my mum one evening around Halloween and she stopped to talk to a friend who mentioned that he was on his way to Marks & Sparks. to me this sounded like some kind of fireworks display and i really wanted to go and sobbed when my mum fobbed me off by telling me it was just Marks & Spencer, which i didn’t believe for a second.

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