Your biggest disappointment as a child.

Being an only child. I would have loved a brother or sister and even now, in my 70's, I still feel I missed out on something.

Bananas! As a child growing up in the war, I had never seen a banana and people had told me it would be wonderful to have bananas again. When I eventually had one I was so disappointed - I thought it would be juicy like the other fruit I loved!

As an only child I had a very happy and unspoilt, childhood. I was desperate for a red tricycle with a ‘boot’. I thought they were the bees knees. I got a second hand blue one with no boot ?
(Like Sarnia I was desperate for a sibling. Later I understood that I had been my parents last hope for a child. They had lost a full term baby before me so it must have been very difficult to have me asking for a baby brother ?)

We were having a school trip to a zoo and the seaside when I was 9 and we were told where to wait for the coach to pick us up if we didn't live near the school. I waited at the appointed place for 1.5 hours and it didn't come. I went home so upset. I found out the next day the driver forgot to call there, the teacher forgot too. What made it worse was my best friend didn't notice I wasn't there. I've never felt so ignored in all my life. The postive thing is that my mum took me for an icecream to cheer me up, and it taught me to cope with disappointment.

I got a mustard yellow dolls pram from Santa and when we played and maybe swapped each others prams no one wanted mine cos it was so horrible, I used to be in tears. A couple of years later I got the most beautiful Silver Cross pram and of course everyone wanted to swap then.

Lexisgranny

Discovering the cupboard where my unwrapped Christmas presents were some weeks before Christmas so that there were no surprises on Christmas Day.

I am sure there were more important disappointments, but that is the one I remember, and I never ever open birthday or Christmas presents before the appropriate day.

That reminded me of the time DH was chairman of a local charity which was asked to buy a Tiny Tears doll for a little girl whose mother could not afford to buy the one thing on her daughters letter to Father Christmas. The doll was wrapped and left on the hall table ready for delivery next day. Early next morning DD (age 2) crept downstairs and opened the parcel. She was so excited we had to make some excuse about FC had had this one send direct to us but she was not allowed to play with it until Christmas Day.
Doll was quickly re-wrapped and delivered and new doll hastily purchased to hide with all the other gifts for DD we had already wrapped and hidden.
Twenty years later I found myself working with the now grown up little girl. Talking about Christmas she said that the one Christmas she really remembered was when she received a surprise present of a Tiny Tears doll as her mother had said she did not have the money to buy one. Needless to say I never let on.

That I never got a horse. Or even a big rocking horse.

When I was twelve I longed for a record player. My birthday came along and there was a big parcel for me. I tore the paper off to find a huge leather shoulder bag. I was so disappointed. Another disappointing thing was when my dad was going out he would say he was going to see a man about a dog. I would wait for the dog to arrive and it never came!

Getting a dolls pram that was for a small child to play with when I was about 8. I was so disappointed I've never forgotten it.

I went into hospital for an operation when I was 8. I came out a week later with my birthday the following day. Whilst I’d been in hospital my mum had had my favourite doll with long wavy hair all cut off and a short haired wig to replace it. The reason was that I’d washed her hair and ruined it! I was so upset. My other presents were an encyclopaedia and a watch, neither of which I had any interest in having. I was a very sad and disappointed 9 year old.

On holiday in Bournemouth when I was about seven I saw someone eating ice cream in a tall glass. There were layers of ice cream with a red sticky sauce swirling through it, and a cherry on the top. Mum said it was called a Knickerbocker Glory. I couldn't take my eyes of the people eating it with long-handled spoons. I knew it was something I couldn't ask for (our holiday treat was an ice cream cone on the the last day of the holiday). I longed to have a Knickerbocker Glory one day.... but by the time I could have afforded it I could think of nothing I'd less like to eat.

Coming home from school one day to discover my mother had sold my beautiful Silver Cross doll’s pram to the window cleaner for 7/6d. I never forgave her!?

Being made to do ballet (Mam's friend started up a ballet school) when all I wanted to do was learn to ride a horse.

I always wanted a pony and a puppy and although I had riding lessons the longed for pony never materialised and the same goes for the puppy. I do know why my father loved dogs.

The biggest disappointment or perhaps sadness better describes it is that my mother who lost her second child at three months told me that she never wanted another one and especially not a girl. We never really had a relationship.

The Sunday School trip was to Sandsend by the sea and I
was so looking forward to it. When we got there it was pouring with rain but the teachers persevered with the beach activities
and we ate our picnic lunch under a tiny abri. My legs were
blue with cold the whole day. The coach was parked not
far away but the driver had locked it and disappeared!

A few, first learning Father Christmas wasn't real. Our family was pretty hard up so I'd learned not to expect anything expensive for presents, but I did have an aunt and uncle who gave nice toys as presents, and being bitterly disappointed when one year they gave me a set of horrible nylon scratchy yellow underwear - knickers and a petticoat. I wore the knickers once only, and never wore the petticoat.
My biggest disappointment however, was, having surgery on a deformed hand and being told I would have a hand like everyone else's but when the bandages came off, it was nothing of the sort. In hindsight I realise that was never going to be possible, but still feel I was very mislead about that.

Being told that because my big toes are longer than the next two on both my feet, I could never become a ballet dancer.

I had taken lessons for three years at that time and loved it and was good at it too. I wondered then why they let me start if they knew I never could go on point.

I was heart-broken and it took me years to get over my resentment.

My Mother not remembering my birthday! I was brought up by my Grandparents, but was always promised that Mother would visit me on my birthday. She still forgot, even when I was grown up and married. I still don't understand it! She passed away when I was 65.

When I was little I didn't realise that the high heels on 'Ladies' shoes were solid. I thought that when you grew up you would grow high heeled feet!

As a youngster, we had a pet dog which lived to be 15 years old. All my life I've wanted another dog (or two) but because I worked full time for almost 40 years and i didn't want to leave a dog at home all day, I said I would get a rescue dog once I reached 60 and retired. Then guess what happened? The Govt moved the goalposts and I now have to wait even longer for that pet. Grrrrrr! (that's me by the way, not a dog)

The painful posts make my disappointments seem so trivial.
I am so sorry that they were experienced.
My Mum and I clashed over clothes until her death at 88. When I was a child I believed that miracles happened if you truly believed and had faith in God. I prayed almost every night for clothes like Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret wore in a book that I had about them. I used to peep over the bedclothes every morning expecting , then hoping, then being very disappointed that pretty dresses and smart suits ( which would have been truly unsuitable for the lifestyle I had ) were not waiting there. I have a thing about nice clothes to this day and have far too many of them.

Mine was a dog issue as well. I had a cross terrier type dog and I loved him to bits. He happily put up with me dressing him up in dolls cloths and walking around the streets. When I was seven my mother was pregnant with my sister and when I came home from school one day he was gone, she had gone to the dogs home, he was to old to rehome so they put him to sleep! I sobbed for weeks and sadly I don’t think I ever really forgave her! ?

I had been accepted at at the Boarding School of my dreams, uniform bought and ready to go. Then my Mum got an envelope telling her I had won a scholarship to a state High School with a boarding house attached. Although it was supposedly my choice, they bombarded me with emotional blackmail until I gave in. I was like a fish out of water in the state school having been to a tiny little convent before, I was in the lower sets for everything, didn't fit in with the other girls and found myself continually in trouble being accused of being a liar, etc. At the end of the first year, the Head wanted to write to my parents to move me but I begged her not to. I thought my parents would class that as being expelled. During the 3rd year, I had a run in with a teacher who was making my life a misery and I rang my Mum crying so hard she could barely make out what I was saying. For the first time ever, she was sympathetic and said if I went back to school she would pick me up to take me home so I could go to another school.
I waited all day and nothing. In the evening just before bedtime, I asked the House Mistress if I could ring my Mother explaining why. Apparently my Mum had been to the school and they had persuaded her to make me stay. She says they wouldn't let me see her to explain but I lost all faith in her that day. Out of the beatings I took, the lies, the chaotic lifestyle with different men in and out of her life, it is the thing I have never been able to forgive her for.

When I was about 5 my dad took me to a school fund raiser where he had organised the raffle. Amongst the prizes I spotted a Sleeping Beauty doll lying on a beautiful bed all wrapped up in cellophane with a bow. Because dad was the organiser I somehow assumed that he would have fixed it so that I would win the prize of my dreams. My first number came up ..... drum roll ..... a turkey! My second number came up ..... drum roll and sweating palms .... a pair of men's socks! Dad had the socks and the turkey went back for someone else. I felt completely gutted!

I think I was about 5, very excited about Father Christmas, hung up two smsll stockings ready for the morning. They were filled with ash from the fire! My Dad said it was because I’d been naughty. He thought it was very funny!