My Earliest Memories

[plimmerian]

I'm waiting for my first assessment tomorrow and was prompted in a previous screening, to think back to childhood. Memories came flooding back, here our some early snippets.

My memories seem to begin at Bentley Street, Clock Face, St Helens, with neighbours Madge and Austin. I have a clear memory in my nappy, standing up in my cot and seeing Mum talking to Madge over the fence. I was attempting to get my Mum's attention.

Then my memories jump to when we lived in Hewitt Avenue, Eccleston, St Helens. I remember riding my first bike (tricycle) there. I recall the lady across the road called Joan, she had a hush puppy dog called Santa. I remember her mother, an old lady but can't remember her name - Mrs ?

There are memories of another lady who would walk a Dalmatian dog past our house every day and would often stop to chat if we were out in the garden.

I have memories of going to nursery near there too, a huge old Victorian building. The teacher played guitar and we would go up a steep, narrow staircase to a very dark television room to watch "Play School". I seem to remember going past a blacksmiths near our home and I recall seeing a shire horse being shoe-ed on a hot summer's day for some reason.

There is a memory of going to the town centre of St Helens with my father, as he wanted to go to Argos. I remember feeling bored and was distracted. A man walked towards the door of the store, to leave the building and shopping mall. I had mistaken him for my father, followed him out and ended up on the street outside alone. Terrified I got upset in the panic but thankfully a lovely family stopped to find out who I was and what had happened. It must have only been minutes but my father came running out of the mall looking for me. I'm sure I got told off for it and my father would have got scolded by my Mum for not keeping hold of me!

In my memories it felt Hewitt Avenue had "soul" but when we moved away to another town, on to a new build estate and I remember having feelings of "this place has no soul". I do remember our first neighbours moving in though, on the same day. Their daughter was Becky and their dog was Sam, who was mad as a box of frogs!

This move meant there was no nursery for me to attend, so my Mum had made the infant school take me in earlier than I should have been. So when new school started and my classmates moved up a year, they were all making a fuss that I hadn't moved up with them, not realising I was actually in the correct year I was suppose to be in.

Thank you for letting me share.

 

[Viktoria]

My first definite memory is being met on Shrewsbury Station  by my father’s cousin.Not sure of the date but definitely immediately after the Christmas 1940  blitz on our area of Manchester ,Dec 23rd and 24th .
Don’t remember Christmas at all,presents etc.
I then remember arriving at my father’s cousin’s house.

How dark it was -just paraffin lamps and candles but a nice fire in the bungalow range.
How long my parents stayed I do not know but I have no recollection of seeing them for ages.I had not met Dad’s cousin or his wife .
My sister was to live with Dad’s auntie in the next cottage,so not far apart but not together.She had made many visits being three years older than me,
lots of photos etc.
And so after a little while and more upheavals(Dad’s cousins at long last were having a baby) I went to live with people who were not related and I can remember being pushed in a navy blue a Silver across pushchair around the village ,well hamlet really,and being taken in by the wonderful people with whom I was to spend the rest of the war and many many holidays  later.
I was not I’ll treated by my relatives but the care I had from the people who took me in was wonderful.I might very well have been a handful ,four homes by the time I was four probably was not a good thing but I was so happy and had an amazing childhood.Just the right amount of  “careful neglect”,
playing free and finding out for myself.
I am still in contact with the daughter of those people who was like a third mother to me being nine years older.
The war was of course absolutely horrible but for me it was a most happy time.Sadly I don’t think Mum and I re connected as well as she and my sister did ,but my sister never settled and there were tears and tantrums every time Mum had to go back to Manchester whereas I just watched wondering what she was fussing about.
She however was not with a nice family where there was a younger child,a spoilt brat called Phyllis,to this day I find it impossible to like anyone named Phyllis
Was I damaged, I don’t think so really.
But the memories I have of that time are amazing.I ought to write them down.
I phoned the daughter just the other day which I do regularly.
She is 90 now and not in good health,I must make a visit,I am dreading that
phone call.
Oh I am off down memory lane again.But it is a lovely place to be.
                  Viktoria.

[Mike Morrell (NL)]

One of my earliest memories (aged +/- 3) was seeing a huge brown snake in a hedge during a leisurely walk with my parents (on the reins . They told me not me be silly and walked on (and dragged me with them). 60 years on, my 'snake sighting' does seem very unlikely. At the time I couldn't understand why they couldn't see it too 

[Treetotal]

I had a recurring memory of being in a bed with high bars, (This would have been a cot) the walls were green and there was a yellow curtain at the side of the bed. There was a loud ticking clock above the door and people passing would look at me through the window in the door. People who came in and out of the room always wore masks. I do remember my Mother coming and she too wore a mask. When I recalled this memory to my a Mother, she told me I was in the hospital with suspected Diptheria which turned out to be double pneaumonia and I they also found that I had a heart murmur. I was 18 months old.

When I was about four or five years old, I saw a girl in the street with a doll and pram that she had got for her birthday and she was showing it off, I recognised it as it had a black doll dressed in knitted clothes made by my mum. I told her that the doll and pram was mine and she wouldn't let go of it, I gave her a shove and took my doll and pram home. Soon after there was a knock on the door and the girl's Mother told my mother what I had done. I learned that my Mother had passed it on as I didn't play with it anymore. I can still remember being upset and saying "but it was mine". When my own children outgrew their toys, I always asked if they had finished with them before passing them on.

Carol

[iluleah]

Several strong memories of carrying a little white toy dog tucked under my arm which seemed to go everywhere with me, I know it disappeared before I went to school.

Hiding under the wooden steps while the children played in the playground during my first week in full time school as I was frightened and didn't know anyone and when the teacher found me, scolded me,then being forced to sleep with a prickly blanket, on returning to the class room which had all camp beds put in it for all the children and not wanting to. Each child was given a toothbrush and rough towel, both looked second hand and I didn't want to use it, so the teacher stood over me until I did.
I was just 3 yrs old when I went to full time school.

I had to stand on an upside down plant pot to unlock the door after school and was told I could play in the back garden or in the house, not open the door and not go out the front, so I 'read' stories to the dog and cats waiting for my parents to come home from work. I felt very lonely and isolated, my friend was the dog.
Then the dreaded 'list' on the mantle a long list of jobs to do, 'wash up', 'dry', 'put away', 'piano practice', 'feed the rabbits'... the list went on forever... I would not look at the mantle for ages and prayed it wasn't there but it always was.

Being 'palmed' off during school holidays or having to sit in the back of the shop and be quiet ( which also happened every weekend) One summer I went to stay with my mum's cousin in Wales, one was spent with my grandparents in Nottinghamshire and that was all before I was 6yrs old.

[Sinann]

You might like to read the latest report on earliest memories
https://www.sciencealert.com/earliest-memory-may-be-fictional-40-percent-of-people

[jaybelnz]

Well, these early memories of mine are certainly not fictional!   

1. When I was a wee girl, my Dad would dance around the lounge with me standing on his feet.       Lovely song (on YouTube)

2. I know that my Dad would always sing the same song to me when sitting on his knee every night  and before putting me to bed!

(The song was "Daddy's Little Girl"! It's on YOUTUBE, sung by Michael Buble,  and I cry when I watch it, (which I do very often when I think about my lovely Dad"
https://youtu.be/aZcRH2V_Cfs

Another song that brings back happy but tearful memories is also on YouTube  - Dance with my Daddy Again!
https://youtu.be/vqs7jvYkUR0

(A combination of both happy and sad tears rolling down my face as I typed this) 😥😥😂😂🌹🌹😟😰

[Daonnachd]

I remember being in my cot and I couldn't move very much, I felt very hot and had a bad taste in my mouth. I also remember a man I didn't know leaning right over me and saying something I didn't understand to my Mum. Years later I told my mum about it, and was told I had rheumatic fever when I was about 18 months, I always supposed the man was our GP.

From 3 - 5 I remember going for walks in the park with my Dad and our dog. My Dad never really knew what to do with a daughter, and this was the only thing I really remember us doing together. Having said that, he used to get me to help pick the runner beans, because I was small enough to get between the canes to the ones he couldn't reach.

I was an only child, and our dog was my playmate. When I think of how I pulled him around! he must have been the most patient dog in the world, I don't ever remember him barking at me. I was 5 when he died - my first bereavement I suppose.

Every year I was sent to my grandmother's during the summer holidays from school until my Nan got ill - when I was 8. I loved it. She lived in a village in Suffolk, whereas I lived in a built-up town in Greater London. I loved the countryside. A cousin lived a few doors away so I spent the weeks with her and her village friends playing in the fields behind the houses, and making castles out of the bales of hay (not possible, or allowed now!).

One night every year they burned the stubble, and I loved to watch it from the house. They also had a dog, my own dog's litter sister, she was just as patient with me! 

[jaybelnz]

We also had a dog - a lovely white spaniel with a black patch around one eye!  Naturally, he was called Patch! Happy little fella, but if we sang ("I'm a Lonely Little Petunia In An Onion Patch" he would stand up on his hind legs and howl along with us!!  - Another Happy Memory!  😍😍