Memories.

[Clover]

What is your earliest memory?

I have 2 or 3 and I’m not sure of their chronological order but the one I remember most vividly is from when I must have been about 3.
I went to a “kindergarten” school and we often played outside. One day there was an accident with a stick and as a result we were told not to play with any wood. Now the slide in the playground had wooden steps and it never entered our heads that it was included in the wood ban but unfortunately ( and unfairly in my eyes ) it was. We were marched inside and made to sit against a wall for what seemed like ages.

I also remember walking round at kindergarten holding hands with a little boy who had bumpy warts on the said hands.

[Plantaholic]

My earliest memory was being pushed under a table during the war by my soon to be brother-in-law, I was probably 2/3. I also remember being told off at nursery school and I suppose I was sulking and pushed a bead up my nose and had to go to hospital, I can still remember lying on the bed having it removed, I insisted some little boy came with me.

[Oma]

My first memory was being in my pram I was only a tot , about 2 ,
My sister was pushing me in the park she would have been about 13 then , there was a slight hill down to the pond and she let go of the pram for a second and it rolled towards the pond ,
I remember her and my Aunt who was the same age screaming and grabbing the pram ,
I wouldn't have gone into the pond as there was a small metal railings around it but they must have had a shock ,

My next memory is my dear Father taking me on Easter Sunday to the Citadel for the Easter parade , I remember my lovely suit and white shoes with my bonnet

[ZIZI]

I was about three and my brother four, mum was pregnant with sister and we were living in temporary army accommodation in Warminster. Brother and I went out to play and ran back into the house screaming our heads off because a piggy doggy was after us. It was actually a boxer pup wanting to play, I think that is where my sivhtkynuncimfortable feelings about dogs come from (apart from having been chased by one in a school playground in Berlin when I was about 8).

Another memory was just after my sister was born in Warminster and mother was taking us all to the clinic with baby sister in the big coach built pram and brother and I under strict orders to hold onto the side of the handles. Cannot remember exactly what happened now but it transpired that under my dress I wasn’t wearing any knickers. Mother was mortified and we had to walk all the way back to the house to put my knickers on. Also Dad had a motorbike and sidecar at that time and mum would sit on the back wearing a headscarf, one of us would be in the back seat of the side car and the other in the front with the baby swaddled in a shawl in the nose of the sidecar. Oh my goodness wouldn’t health and safety have a field day with that one?

[Nanto2girls]

My memory must be going,i can't think of anything until i was about 11.

It was Whitsuntide, and i had got some new beige shoes with cuban heels.
Cuban heels were a new thing then and i loved those shoes.
When we went back to school after the Whitsuntide holidays, i was told i had to wear my school shoes,not my new cuban heels.
But, i sneaked my new shoes on.
Yes, you've guessed it,i was fond out. Boy, did i get into trouble that day.

[Clover]

Zizi you reminded me about a “no knicker” incident.I used to sit in a little seat on the back of my Mum’s bike.As she lifted me off one day I remember her being horrified that I had no knickers on.

[Oma]

My DD did that , we got on the bus she climbed onto the side seat and she had no knickers on , she had them on when we left the house but lord knows where they went ,
Had to go in a shop when we got to town and buy some

[ZIZI]

Unlike today Clover when the girls wear shorts so short they may as well not have any on!! Oh my goodness I sound old......

[Daisy]

How interesting we have all these 'no knicker' stories. I can remember having heated discussions about whether I needed knickers under shorts or not!

My earliest memory is dad pushing me in a big high pram and pretending to let go and then running after the pram to catch it. I was screaming with delight - a proper thrill junkie! I also have a very vivid but odd memory. I was 3 or 4 and it was winter-time. Coal was scarce (late 40s) and the weather was cold and wet. I went upstairs for something and walked into what seemed like a huge white balloon. I ran downstairs again, screaming my head off. What had happened the distemper (I suppose it was) on the landing ceiling had come off with the cold and damp and was hanging almost to the floor. I've also got a very vivid memory of sitting at a little desk drawing and colouring. I can remember I was wearing a fair-isle cardigan and a plaid skirt. I can remember I was really concentrating on what I was doing, totally absorbed and Mum coming in to the room and pointing out of the window - it was snowing and had already covered the garden in a white blanket! I've got lots of memories of playing out in the street from when I was 4 or 5. When you start thinking about them, it doesn't seem so long ago, does it!!

[Gemini]

I love reading these stories

My first memory is aged 3, being at my aunties house while mum and dad went to to look at the new bungalow which was being built (And mum still lives in) I remember not knowing what the word Bunglow meant, as I had never heard it before.
I remember starting school at 5 and crying every day

[Daisy]

Gem - do y ou remember why you cried when you started school? I can remember children crying on the first day and not understanding why - I just thought it was all new and exciting, and I thought something awful must have happened to they weepy ones to upset them so much.

[Enfys]

What a great thread.

I can remember being in a pushchair, aged 3 ish, it was pouring with rain and it must have been in the winter, late afternoon as I remember it was very gloomy. My Mum’s auntie was pushing me and she had given me her umbrella to hold over me. A gust of wind tore it out of my hands and I can see it now, bowling down the road and auntie chasing after it. I can also remember around the same sort of age, being poorly and being tucked up in the sofa in the kitchen/living room. There was a black, old fashioned range type stove with a little fire behind a grid. It’s all so vivid even though it was so long ago.

[Clover]

I think it’s interesting that most of our earliest memories were from when we about 3 years old
I wonder what our GCs earliest memories will be?

[aggie]

I remember trying to trot like a pony cos my walking reins had wee bells on tbe pink leather bit round my chest , DB was 14 mpnths younger and he hsd a blue version

[Gemini]

Daisy, I cried because I was bereft, I felt as though I had been sent to prison. Just me and mum at home all day, then suddenly I had to go to this alien place all day with no mummy!
Looking back, my sister was born prematurely, in the February before I went to school. My mum being in hospital (which strangely I have no memory of) and then caring for a tiny and ill baby, and mum herself exceedingly anxious over all this, must have impacted on my starting school as well,

(OH said she cried too, bitterly, although she had a younger brother and no recent family traumas! Maybe some children just feel it more than others. With no playgroup or nursery, just straight into 5 day a week school must have been a shock)