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Thumper
20-Sep-07, 10:02
Hey folks just wondering what your earliest childhood memory is?Mine is aged 31/2 I was on holiday in wales with my mam and dad and some teenagers took me out for the afternoon...to the coal slags!We slid all the way down them and it was great fun,until I got back to mam and dad who were furious with the older kids for taking me somewhere so dangerous and mam was furious cos I had slid down them wearing white trousers and a pale pink jumper :eek:.My son's earliest memory is really weird because when he was born he wasn't breathing and spent the first 4 days in an incubator and when he was 2yrs old he said to me"when I was born why did you keep me in a fishtank?" so did he really rememeber it or was it just something silly a child would say????x

helenwyler
20-Sep-07, 12:17
Ah Thumper, what fun!!

My earliest (and we're talking mid-1950s here, when toddlers were still strapped in their prams and put outside in the garden for their afternoon 'rest') was waking up in the pram and trying to get out....but being harnessed in I ended up dangling over the edge, presumably yelling my head off[lol]!

I remember the house well...we were only there for a year, so I would have been 2 or 3. I also remember in that house being given Beecham's Powder mixed with jam, and eating raw yeast:eek:... YUK to both!

NickInTheNorth
20-Sep-07, 12:22
When I was just two and a half my dad converted his mothers front room into a shop!

I was given my own hammer to "help". I always assumed I was 4 or 5, and was astounded when I found out a few years ago that I was so young :)

Whitewater
20-Sep-07, 12:30
My first memory is lying in my pram with feet sticking out below the covers (around about 18months old I guess) when my older cousin, a girl, bit my big toe, I'm sure she has been bullying me ever since. She certainly left me howling.

Thumper
20-Sep-07, 12:35
Ah Thumper, what fun!!

My earliest (and we're talking mid-1950s here, when toddlers were still strapped in their prams and put outside in the garden for their afternoon 'rest') was waking up in the pram and trying to get out....but being harnessed in I ended up dangling over the edge, presumably yelling my head off[lol]!

I remember the house well...we were only there for a year, so I would have been 2 or 3. I also remember in that house being given Beecham's Powder mixed with jam, and eating raw yeast:eek:... YUK to both!

Oh Helen you poor thing!.....god it made me laugh though!lol x

justine
20-Sep-07, 12:51
my earliest was at 5. I remember mum and dad telling me i was starting a new school. Wish i had understood what baording school meant, i would not have been so keen, but that was where i was to spend the next 10 yrs.Not that i knock the education i got but was it worth all those years from home...My father was in the army and i have few memories before that, i think as it was so traumatic i remember it well..There must be a few good memories there somewhere...:eek:

Thumper
20-Sep-07, 12:55
Justine that is very sad :( it seems a very young age to go to boarding school even if your dad was in the services.I have nothing against boarding schools as I did consider it for my eldest before me and his Dad split but 5yrs is sooooo young to be away from home x

justine
20-Sep-07, 13:03
i know.i did not know that when they dropped me off for te first time it would be six months before i would see them again. Dont get me wrong i enjoyed my years there.I went to one school called harecroft hall in cumbria, and a Royal navy boarding school in yeovil in somerset.I would not consider thinking about sending any of my children to boarding school as you miss out so much with parents. I dont have much to do with mine but then i dont really know them...

Anne x
20-Sep-07, 13:24
My baby brother outside the front door with a cat net over his pram and I managed to cope a bucket of sand over him my mother came out to find the baby screaming and spluttering !!! I did live to tell the tale only just !!!

also cold winters mornings with the frost inside and outside the windows no D Glazing then or C Heating Brrrr

karia
20-Sep-07, 13:32
Hi Folks,

A friend of the family threw a black coat over me for a laugh when I was about 18 months old...the world went black and I went ballistic!

He didn't have any kids of his own and genuinely thought I would find it funny!:roll::eek:

karia

paris
20-Sep-07, 14:00
My first day at school with my new family at almost 5yrs old. I remember the teacher asking if i knew any one else there and i did , a boy called David , so we were sat together to play bricks.
I don't remember anything before that as i had been taken away by social services and put up for adoption and so I've since been told if something bad has happened in your life some people block it from their memory which i obviously did . Jan x

Thumper
20-Sep-07, 15:37
Wow so far the memories have been so different!It's nice to know that we all have such different lives and different memories though isn't it?Even the sad ones are special because thet are ours and they are what make us the people we are.Keep them coming guys,happy,sad,terrifying...they are all very interesting to read x

Tubthumper
20-Sep-07, 15:41
There was a sudden bright light, then someone slapped me...

Thumper
20-Sep-07, 15:47
There was a sudden bright light, then someone slapped me...
Was that the 1st memory or the last [lol]...you sure that wasn't after a night out on the "bad juice" x

johno
20-Sep-07, 15:56
There was a sudden bright light, then someone slapped me...
Tubthumper thats not fair. i was thinking exactly on those lines & decided to check through the posts, you beat me to it. I think also, that if this is what,s in store for me ,christ do an about turn & stay in the warmth.:eek:

angela5
20-Sep-07, 16:04
Earliest memory was when i was around 3 years old playing at a playgroup run by Nun's, i loved it there and can still remember when they decided to close and i spent the entire last morning crying.
Around that age i also remember staying at my Gran's in Broughty Ferry, there was a lot of steps leading upto the back doors of all the houses, and i was fascinated that the washing lines were so high up. I remember my gran turning some sort of handle to reel her washing in.

George Brims
20-Sep-07, 17:02
I remember as a toddler being picked up so I could see out of the kitchen window. Outside was covered in deep snow, and a helicopter was dropping bales of hay to some of our cattle in a field a few hundred yards away. I believe this was called "Operation Snowdrop". It was such a bad winter many farmers just couldn't get the food out to the outside beasts, so helicopters were brought in to help.

A few years ago I told my mum she remembered this, and she said that was impossible, as I would only have been about 20 months old at the time. When I told her I remembered the colour of the helicopter (a dark red) she just stared at me in amazement! However as can be seen from some of the responses above, children do remember stuff from very early ages. It just seems to be extremely selective (the really good or bad or unusual bits) up until 3 or 4 or even older.

cuddlepop
20-Sep-07, 17:24
I remember cuddling up to my granny's fur coat in the back of the car and when I was really cold (no central heating in those day's )granny's fur coat being used as a blanket.
Would have a problem with owing a fur coat now but then being wee you just dont realise.
Also remember sleeping over at her's and being in a hollow or bed recess as I think its called now.
My Gran died when I was four but at least I've got some memory's:D

scorrie
20-Sep-07, 17:44
There was a sudden bright light, then someone slapped me...

Sorry to be a "Oneupman", but my earliest memory was the echo of my Mother's words "It's alright dear, I DON'T have a headache tonight" ;)

To be serious though, I remember being in my pram as a baby and noticing that it was outside the house for the first time. I also vividly recall the first time I had solid food as it was the first time I had eaten anything that actually involved the tastebuds. I can also remember crawling into a car aged 1 year 364 days, to go see my Mum, who had just given birth to my Brother. My Dad cooked the lunch that day and we had Charcoal Black fish fingers that were still cold in the middle. RIP poor Marco-Pierre Black, the reluctant chef!!

mccaugm
20-Sep-07, 17:54
A couple of things spring to mind, my grandad in his sitting room, putting sweets on the coffee table for me. He died when I was just turned 4 so I could of only been about 3 at the time. Also I remember being given my dinner and telling my mum that "I am not hungry for my dinner, I'm hungry for my pudding".[lol]

karia
20-Sep-07, 18:08
Hi Folks,

Another memory from when I was a toddler.

I was playing quietly behind the sofa when something annoyed my father and he muttered, 'oh god'...to which I replied in a faux deep voice 'yes Peter?'....everyone fell about laughing.:D

I think I remember this because everyone seemed so delighted with me!

By the by, how's this for coincidence..while out and about this afternoon I had a door opened for me by the very chap who threw the black coat over me in my earlier reply to this thread...Spooky!:eek:

karia

paris
20-Sep-07, 19:06
There was a sudden bright light, then someone slapped me...
I like it ! very funny jan x

abalone
20-Sep-07, 19:23
I think we can all remember more than we realise.I can remember being pushed in my pram,sitting on my Mums knee and climbing into my pram.The most vivid though is when I was 2 years and 4 months.I was the youngest of 6 girls and my Mum had a boy.I don't remember being upset about a new baby but my Dad said to me,never mind,you're still my little Queen.This was 65 years ago but I can still see the porridge bowls on the breakfast table and my dad sitting in his chair with his cup of tea,in a saucer.Of course I was never treated like a Queen so something went wrong there.

golach
20-Sep-07, 19:25
one of my earliest memories was, first hearing and then seeing a big Steam Traction Engine, come up the road to Staneland Farm, and then standing in amazement at that machine doing the threshing, up until then the most powerful thing I had ever seen was the pair of Clydedale horses my Dad drove, I must have been about 3 years old at the time.

Oddquine
20-Sep-07, 21:03
I must have been about three, and I hid behind the couch whenever my folks had visitors so they didn't have to acknowledge my existence and could spend their time cooing over my younger brother and sister.

mccaugm
20-Sep-07, 21:13
I must have been about three, and I hid behind the couch whenever my folks had visitors so they didn't have to acknowledge my existence and could spend their time cooing over my younger brother and sister.

That sounds rather bitter....hope you got over that quickly.

Oddquine
20-Sep-07, 21:19
That sounds rather bitter....hope you got over that quickly.

Not really.....left me with an inferiority complex as big as a house! :D

lynne duncan
21-Sep-07, 16:11
remember going to the neighbours and playing with fiona while dad went to visit mum in the "home" after my brother was born making me 3 and a half, also when dad came back getting some ice-cream as a treat.
remeber first day in primary one being left at the north school with miss davidson and someone howling behing the classroom door

Margaret M.
21-Sep-07, 17:07
I can remember sitting on my mother's lap and looking out the train window when I was 2. When I was 4, I was outside leaning against the wall crying my heart out because my birthday card with a bunny rabbit on it was thrown away. On the first day of school, I asked if I could have a drink of water. When the teacher said no, I left and walked home.

domino
22-Dec-07, 22:40
my earliest memory goes back to 1945 .we had Polish Officers billeted with us.I think they had something to do with the camps at Watten and Skitten. We also had RAf personnel and I remember going to a ?Christmas party at a listening Station at Bowermadden

sassylass
22-Dec-07, 23:09
I can recall my father building a planter box in the back of the house, and toddler me falling on a board and a big sliver going into my knee. I recall riding in the car to the doctors office, the car windows were up so high I couldn't see out. I remember the layout of the doctor's office and the sterile smell of the place and the doctor working on my leg and stitching it. I was one or two, and yes I still have the scar.

Isn't it strange I can remember that like it was yesterday, but I cannot remember what I had for dinner last night :roll:.

Buttercup
23-Dec-07, 00:06
I remember vividly being a flower girl at the age of 3. The wedding took place in St Andrews Church (now the Funeral Parlour) and the reception was in the Holborn Hotel. I somehow got parted from Mam and Dad and was begining to panic when I spotted what I thought was my Dad standing with his back to me. I went over and cuddled into his legs so relieved to have found him until I looked up and discovered that it was the minister! Well, I got such a fright I nearly took the place down crying, which insured my parents quickly found me! From that day on I was terrified of that minister.

johno
23-Dec-07, 00:59
My first memories were when my mother took me to the school for the first day,I was about 4½yrs old. my mum left me after the teacher Mrs Sandison gave me a sweetie. By the time mum got home i was waiting at our front door for her. I was marched straight back . But I eventually grew to like school. :Razz

Torvaig
23-Dec-07, 01:22
one of my earliest memories was, first hearing and then seeing a big Steam Traction Engine, come up the road to Staneland Farm, and then standing in amazement at that machine doing the threshing, up until then the most powerful thing I had ever seen was the pair of Clydedale horses my Dad drove, I must have been about 3 years old at the time.

I wonder if that was my grandad;:) he used to travel around Caithness with the mill......but I'm sure there were quite a few of them.....

DeHaviLand
23-Dec-07, 01:54
I was 2 years and 4 months old. We had gone for a day trip to Stevenston in Ayrshire and I had fallen into the swimming pool. My Great Uncle Peter reached over, grabbed my hair and pulled me out in one move. He was a coalman, a great, hulking man of enormous strength, and probably the loveliest man I ever knew. I remember him as tho it were yesterday, and even though he died 25 years ago, i can see him as plain as day.

sassylass
23-Dec-07, 02:40
I was 2 years and 4 months old. We had gone for a day trip to Stevenston in Ayrshire and I had fallen into the swimming pool. My Great Uncle Peter reached over, grabbed my hair and pulled me out in one move. He was a coalman, a great, hulking man of enormous strength, and probably the loveliest man I ever knew. I remember him as tho it were yesterday, and even though he died 25 years ago, i can see him as plain as day.

Aren't memories comforting, makes it seem like loved ones are still with us.

oldmarine
23-Dec-07, 23:54
I remember at the age of 3 years I thought I was going hunting with my toy gun and got lost. Someone about a mile from my home knew me and helped me get home. At 82 years of age I still have that in my memory bank.

mccaugm
24-Dec-07, 01:35
I am not sure how old I was but I remember being in Dingwall shopping with my mum. We went into what was" William Lows" supermarket. My mums friend was there, he was (is) 6' 7" and I was pertrified because he was sooo tall. They had those mirrored posts around the shop so I could see him wherever I hid. Years later I called an insurance company and who came to the door...!!! I was a little less nervous this time. :lol:

Dusty
24-Dec-07, 13:48
I can remember when I was about 3, being bathed in the sink of the room and kitchen tenement we lived in and seeing the pub opposite decked out in bunting for the Coronation. The pub was appropriately called the Coronation Bar.
That's the Coronation of the present Queen before anybody asks [lol]

cullpacket
26-Dec-07, 20:12
I went out with ma Faither and I came home with ma Mither!

teenybash
18-Aug-08, 23:46
My first memory was when I was three. We were all ready for bed and the fire was still glowing red in our wee singlen' in Glasgow when I asked my mum, 'How do you have a baby?'
She answered simply in her smiling Irish voice. 'You put on a clean nightie and send for granny.'
For years every time she put on a clean nightie, I would ask excitedly. 'Are you sending for granny.' I never did get that baby brother or sister.

wifie
19-Aug-08, 00:14
My earliest memory is very clear. I was 4 and three quarters - first day at school. I can remember the net curtains and the sunshine and bein given dominoes to play with (everyone had something different on their desk). The boy opposite me had a big bogey hangin from his nose (seemed to be his thing - he often did yuk!). One child was bein held by the wrists by the teacher while he kicked lumps out of her legs. I remember thinkin, "What is he makin all the fuss about?"

Venture
19-Aug-08, 00:44
One of my earliest memories was when I was four and a half and having a tray with sand in it and a wooden pencil thing at school. At five I can remember washing the cat in the bathroom sink. When my horrified mother saw the half drowned poor thing in the kitchen and asked what happened to him I said he must have spat on himself.

Being sent to the shop for a packet of biscuits that were half pink and white marshmallow and opening them on the way home and taking a bite out of each of them. When questioned by my mother I told her the shop was only selling ones with bites out of them that day.

joxville
19-Aug-08, 01:06
When I was about 3 or 4 my sister, 3 years my senior, and I got up early on New Years day and found loads of bottles and cans of 'stuff'. We proceeded to try a variety of said 'stuff' but my sister didn't like any off it. I carried on and don't remember anything after that. No idea how much I'd drunk but according to my mother I went though to their bedroom telling them I felt sick. My dad looked at me and said I appeared a bit greenish, then my mum picked me up and smelt the alcohol on me! Apparently I slept for 2 days.

brandy
19-Aug-08, 08:14
my two most earliest memoies would be when i was about 2 i can remember jumping fom stone to stone in ou front pathway. you knw like crazy paving? leading up to the house?
also i can remember holding on to my daddys legs crying not wanting him to go to work! we had a black rottary phonoe. and my mum and dad would get a kick out of letting me answer it and say hello, ( i had just learned to speak so was just about a year and a bit) when i was 3 almost 4 i followed my dog charlie ( he was a little black terrier like dog) thinking he had found a new creek. we then got very lost and i decided to try and find my granny s house (which lived about 10 miles away!) i found a mannie in his garden burning brush.. figured nope not grannys wandered back in teh woods. crawled up under a thorn bush and slept for about 2-3 hours and then started walking again. came out onto a road and just happened to come out when a manie that worked near where i lived was coming hme from work stopped the car and said.. ggod lod brandy what are you doing here? get in and ill take you to your mama! and me and charlie jumped in and he took me home.
you know i cant remember the police, news cameras or anything like that, but i can remebe his brown buick and him leaning over the seat with a shocked expression when he saw me!

trix
25-Aug-08, 13:32
ma earliest memory is standin at ma front door in ma auld hoose. i hed one o' them baby suits on that tie between 'e leigs as i remember feelin 'e poppers in ma fingers.

ma beeg brither (ma hero at 'e time) went runnin past me oot 'e front door an a mind shoutin, 'bichael.....bichael'

i wis so surprised that i wisna sayin it properly. i remember sayin micheal in ma heid an tryin again, 'bicheal' is all that wid come oot.....:lol:

da ken how auld i wis but it wis probly 'e first time i ever said ma brithers name.

mums angels
25-Aug-08, 14:06
My earliest memory was when i was about 2 1/2 waking up in the dark and realising that the lights had gone out again ( regular occurence i think in the country) getting up walking toward my brothers bed to find he wasn't there so made my way to my parents bedroom ..turn left down two steps heard the mice squeaking and scratching turn right up two steps ..opened the door and there was my brother already in my parents bed ( there was a light in there, maybe a torch ) funny thing is we moved before i was 3 and i coudnt remember anything about that house except how to get from my room to my parents LOL

i recently went back to the house as my daughters friend now lives there and it brought back a few small memories

joxville
25-Aug-08, 14:15
Another early memory is when I had learned to write, maybe aged 4 or 5. Dad had told me off for something, I can't remember why, but he sent me to my bedroom. I went to my room and wrote on a piece of paper, 'dad i hate you you are a {child of doubtful parentage}, and slipped the note under the living room door. About a minute later my dad comes out the door, picks me up off the stairs and a few whacks later I learned I had better not use 'that' word again! [lol]

badger
25-Aug-08, 14:18
I can remember being summonsed for a roll call by the Japanese guards and lining up, which was a fairly common occurence but this particular time my older brother had cut his hand on a tin. Can't remember what happened to his hand though. Also remember seeing my father coming down the steps of the camp hospital after a minor operation, but nothing before or after. Funny how old memories are often like snapshots.

scotsannie
25-Aug-08, 14:42
:D Being at my Granny's at High Street, in the early 50's and going down to the beach with my brother, on the way back we found a dead fish under the arch between High Street and Shore Street, we took it home and asked Granny to cook it for wer tea, to which she replied: "Take that smelly old thing out of here". We used to have so much fun just playing on the beach. It brings back so many memories every time I go under the arch, or walk down the street.

teenybash
25-Aug-08, 16:04
I was around 3/4 yrs old and discovered to my delight, I could whistle.
So excited was I that I sat down, paper in hand and pencil at the ready to write to my sailor uncle and show him how I had learned to whistle.
I sat for a long time trying to figure what to put on my bit of paper. Finally I asked mum...'How do you write a whistle?' I never did get the answer as my mother couldn't speak for laughing which puzzled me..................can anyone, now tell me how to write a whistle?:Razz

Sandra_B
25-Aug-08, 18:26
Falling down the backdoor steps and breaking my collar bone while running away from the Doctor...who had come to the house to check on how my broken collarbone was healing from falling out off bed. (I remember falling out of the bed too). I was about 2 at the time.

Tilter
25-Aug-08, 22:12
Being given a bath in the sink at my gran's is first thing I can remember.

Also, being at someone's house for the Coronation and being passed about from knee to knee and people I didn't know kissing me. I would have been 3 or 4 then.

Invisible
26-Aug-08, 12:27
Crying over spilled milk. Dont know how old i was

scotsannie
29-Aug-08, 14:59
:lol: I remember when they used to have the swingboats on the playground at Victoria Walk, me and my brother got into one (not realising you had to pay) until the man came and asked for money, to which we replied we don't have any, he must have been in a good mood, cos he let us have a shot for nothing. Also going with cousin Will to play mini golf at the Royal Bank of Scotland, that was many, many years ago.

sassylass
30-Aug-08, 01:33
Less than 2 years old I suppose, because I was still in a cot and my 2 older sisters got the idea to play jail with me as the prisoner. They put me underneath, gave me a comic book, then put down the rail. I recall it was a Donald Duck comic book but it wasn't entertaining enough I suppose because I remember crying and seeing my mother's legs walk into the room and hearing her voice saying "What are you girls up to?" and her pulling me out. Yes, I have claustrophobia lol.

JimH
30-Aug-08, 20:12
I can remember sitting on the front door step in Cecil Street, Liverpool, watching the Fire Brigade Fight the Coal Yard fire, after a visit from some German airplanes. I was eating a butty of some discription.

wee sparkle
30-Aug-08, 23:22
My earliest memory was when i was lying in my room (cant remember which house) and i was looking up at this clown on my wall, it was a clown holding balloons and i was absolutely terrified of it, i cant remember how old i was but i was really young, and my fear of this clown lead to my mum taking it off the wall:lol: Then again i had an imaginary "friend" called Jimmy Whim who i was terrified of! Strange child i was:eek:

Welcomefamily
30-Aug-08, 23:53
Having a lorry as a gift when we were on holiday.