Jacket_Potato
Devoted Cultist
- Joined
- Oct 20, 2018
- Messages
- 125
Hi all
I am new to this site (although i lurked for a while and when the site change happened, one of the administrators was kind enough to sign me up so i could stay in the loop about the new site - am very glad that this forum has survived)
I wanted to share a childhood experience that has made me wonder ever since i got old enough to really think about it: it was the mid 90s & I was about 9 years old, it was the spring or summer (light in the evenings, although I couldn't say what month).
My parents would sometimes take me and my two younger brothers (2 and 3 years or so younger than me) for dinner in a bar / restaurant that was in a converted Grade 2 listed building, it's a really beautiful place with a large garden area where we could play and easily large enough to run around in. It's still a beautiful place, you can feel the history in the building when you go for a meal and i still love it there.
This one time it was early evening as we were there for dinner. I was wearing jeans and t-shirt, out in the garden playing with my brothers. We would always make friends with and play games with other kids we met there (like 'it' or similar) - the garden was enclosed from the road and everything so it was quite safe. This particular time, me & my brothers we went into an area of the gardens we weren't technically meant to (off limits to guests) that was over a small wall.
This is where it gets strange - standing a few feet away from me were a girl & boy of about my age but they were dressed in grubby, ripped Victorian style clothing. This didn't compute with me, I'd never seen anything like that before & was obviously only used to modern clothing. I looked them up and down with suspicion asked them why were they dressed like that? They were absolutely solid and very real. The girl (in a grubby white petticoat thing) said to me 'we're poor'. But the answer didn't make sense to me because so were many people but I'd never seen anyone else dressed like that and really dirty / unwashed, where were their jeans and trainers? The girl then said to me 'come and play with us' and I said no, our meal would be ready soon and we had to go. I was aware that we weren't meant to be there and these kids were weird, I didn't want to play with them.
I told my brothers we were going back (they listened to me at that age!) and we went back to the restaurant, I told my mum that some kids in old fashioned dirty victorian clothes had asked us to play with them and was told to not go to that place again. I never thought about it again until I was older - who were they and why were they dressed like that?!
I thought had they been due to go to a fancy dress party - but then they were young children and aren't kids parties usually at lunch time / afternoon? And there's no housing over there, so even if they had been to a party there was no reason for them to be there. Also who would dress their child in a ripped dirty costume with dirt all over them? They looked like they hadn't washed in weeks - this was no fancy dress outfit, it was more like they'd been dug up (excuse the phrase!). They weren't distressed or anything, there was no sense that these were children in danger or anything - they were quite calm and matter of fact. Had my parents thought so, they would have acted. But that's not the vibe these kids gave off.
I asked my mum recently if she remembers me talking about it at the time and she said yes. Anyway i still love the building, and didn't ever see them there again
I am new to this site (although i lurked for a while and when the site change happened, one of the administrators was kind enough to sign me up so i could stay in the loop about the new site - am very glad that this forum has survived)
I wanted to share a childhood experience that has made me wonder ever since i got old enough to really think about it: it was the mid 90s & I was about 9 years old, it was the spring or summer (light in the evenings, although I couldn't say what month).
My parents would sometimes take me and my two younger brothers (2 and 3 years or so younger than me) for dinner in a bar / restaurant that was in a converted Grade 2 listed building, it's a really beautiful place with a large garden area where we could play and easily large enough to run around in. It's still a beautiful place, you can feel the history in the building when you go for a meal and i still love it there.
This one time it was early evening as we were there for dinner. I was wearing jeans and t-shirt, out in the garden playing with my brothers. We would always make friends with and play games with other kids we met there (like 'it' or similar) - the garden was enclosed from the road and everything so it was quite safe. This particular time, me & my brothers we went into an area of the gardens we weren't technically meant to (off limits to guests) that was over a small wall.
This is where it gets strange - standing a few feet away from me were a girl & boy of about my age but they were dressed in grubby, ripped Victorian style clothing. This didn't compute with me, I'd never seen anything like that before & was obviously only used to modern clothing. I looked them up and down with suspicion asked them why were they dressed like that? They were absolutely solid and very real. The girl (in a grubby white petticoat thing) said to me 'we're poor'. But the answer didn't make sense to me because so were many people but I'd never seen anyone else dressed like that and really dirty / unwashed, where were their jeans and trainers? The girl then said to me 'come and play with us' and I said no, our meal would be ready soon and we had to go. I was aware that we weren't meant to be there and these kids were weird, I didn't want to play with them.
I told my brothers we were going back (they listened to me at that age!) and we went back to the restaurant, I told my mum that some kids in old fashioned dirty victorian clothes had asked us to play with them and was told to not go to that place again. I never thought about it again until I was older - who were they and why were they dressed like that?!
I thought had they been due to go to a fancy dress party - but then they were young children and aren't kids parties usually at lunch time / afternoon? And there's no housing over there, so even if they had been to a party there was no reason for them to be there. Also who would dress their child in a ripped dirty costume with dirt all over them? They looked like they hadn't washed in weeks - this was no fancy dress outfit, it was more like they'd been dug up (excuse the phrase!). They weren't distressed or anything, there was no sense that these were children in danger or anything - they were quite calm and matter of fact. Had my parents thought so, they would have acted. But that's not the vibe these kids gave off.
I asked my mum recently if she remembers me talking about it at the time and she said yes. Anyway i still love the building, and didn't ever see them there again