• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.
MrHermolle, is it possible that the stream was actually run off from the farm ? And you were playing in contaminated water, hence the orang mud? This could explain why the other boy warned you off, as he would have been told not to play there by his father.
Sounds like it might well have been (depending on where you live/d), a fumarole, especially as you were warned off?
 
In Transactional Analysis they call it rubber banding. The theory is that each memory is attached to an elastic band, and something similar or familiar in the present pulls on the elastic band thus triggering recall.

I don't very often remember my dreams, and the ones I do remember are ones I was having when I've been prematurely woken up, for example if someone rings the doorbell. We tend only to dream whilst in REM sleep, and if waking naturally, we pass through shallower stages of sleep where the memory of the dream fades prior to us waking up fully.
But quite a lot of us DO remember our dreams well past waking, and even for years. I wonder why this would be. Some dreams, as you say, fade completely on waking. Others, even if we wake naturally, stay for maybe half an hour once we've woken, and others stick in the memory totally. There's no advantage to remembering dreams, so why don't they ALL fade?
 
Away from the original topic perhaps but I have an odd childhood memory, going back 40 years to when I was 10. At the back of our house we were living in was a farmers field on a slightly lower level to the garden. At the edge of the field was what seemed to be a marshy ares full of long grass. I remember being fascinated by the sound of running water - a stream I couldnt see? One day the fence was down and I got to explore this marshy area. Thete was indeed a small stream flowing from a culvert that came from under the garden. In my memory the stream was narrow but quite deep , leading off from this there was a deep trench full of weird orange mud. We played there for a couple of weeks until the farmers son (our age) came over and said we would be in 'serious trouble' if we were caught playing there... So we didnt and the fences soon got fixed anyway. The whole memory seems unreal and dream-like. No-on else in my family remembers this area anf the stream. Met up over the weekend with my next door neighbor for the first time since the 80s. He bought up the stream as well - I spoke to his parents whp have no memory of the stream either. Seems its just me and him. But its odf how such a small thing has becone such a vivid memory - more important than what the memory should be. My old 10xt door neighbour felt the same too - he was only 5 years old at the time as well - I was 10. Ive looked on Google Maps too and theres just a farmers field - no sign of a stream or a grassy area. Maybe it got filled in - but the whole memory has a heavy strangeness about it.
It wasn't a septic tank overflowing, was it? The whole 'marshy area' sounds a bit like what happens when a septic tank gets overfull, and your memory may have created a proper stream from what was trickling overflow.
 
MrHermolle, is it possible that the stream was actually run off from the farm ? And you were playing in contaminated water, hence the orang mud? This could explain why the other boy warned you off, as he would have been told not to play there by his father.

Ah ha! As I posted on an earlier thread concerning childhood memories. :)
I do like this thread and hearing about other peoples childhoods. :)

Here's a tale about one of the times when us kids in the village had what we termed 'the muhst a fun' ie far better by a wide margin than mere fun! Oh yes, a day to stand out in the memory of happy carefree childhood days.

I grew up in the middle of rural East Anglia and we a had, by todays standards, a wide area to play in. The rules were; keep all gates as you found them, don't go into a field with bulls, don't stand on the crops, don't cross the main road, don't accept sweets off strangers and if you find a tramp asleep don't disturb him.

As the season had been wet we were all wearing rubber boots so when we discovered that one of the copses we only occasionally played in had turned into the Amazonian Rain Forest swamp we were well equipped to explore although the water was deep in parts and sloshed over the top of our boots we didn't mind wet feet!

Oh boy that was fun! Logs had become crocodiles, ivy had become exotic creepers, there were loads of strange looking fish floating around. We felt like real explorers even the common birds took on a specialness. It felt like a 'location' slip such is the power of childrens imaginations. We were at it all morning going off in smaller groups and trying to scare each other. We arranged to all meet after dinner (ie the midday meal). and so we would have done as we weren't tried of the game at all.

However when our mothers got whiff of it they all flew 'hooley riled'* and put a stop to it! We were all 'inta wrong' (ie shouting trouble not smacking trouble) Quite out of proportion compared to the usual grumbling if we'd got a bit muddy and wet!! Oh dear why do parents always have to spoil the best fun??? What had we done wrong? Hey we were fearless explorers we'd discoverd something magical right in our very village we felt admiration was due not all this crossness!

*This was the expression I used at the time. In retrospect 'went ape shit' would have been more appropriate. You see what we'd actually been playing in all morning was the overflowing cesspit from the recently build council houses!!!!

Oooops!

Solliywos x
 
It wasn't a septic tank overflowing, was it? The whole 'marshy area' sounds a bit like what happens when a septic tank gets overfull, and your memory may have created a proper stream from what was trickling overflow.
It could well be something like that. Maybe not a septic tank but something connected to some kind of overflow system. The stream did come out from a small outfall pipe / culvert that came from the houses. Was a pretty constant trickling over the year I lived there.
 
MrHermolle, is it possible that the stream was actually run off from the farm ? And you were playing in contaminated water, hence the orang mud? This could explain why the other boy warned you off, as he would have been told not to play there by his father.
This also makes sense - particularly the orange mud. The stream did flow from a pipe that came from our houses / gardens.
 
One of my kids was talking about his earliest memories, the other day. And he said he wasn't even sure if it was a memory, or something he'd dreamed or made up, but he had this vivid image of himself on a London bus with his birth dad, and the bus braked suddenly and he hit his head on the metal bar on the seat in front. He was certain this hadn't really happened. iIn fact it totally did, but given the place etc it has to have been before he was 2. I wasn't with him but was told about it afterwards. Son was a little shocked it had actually happened.

Another thing he vividly remembers is sitting in his birth dad's kitchen, up on a counter, eating birthday cake (he was being held on to!) He nearly choked on the cake. Again i also remember that vividly and he would have to have been no more than 2. Yet another one he remembered was being with me on a train and screaming and screaming - again, he thought this was a false memory or a dream and hadn't really happened. It did. But he'd have been a baby, maybe not even 2.

Pretty sure he has the most vivid childhood memories because of all my kids, he was the best and earliest at languaage acquisition. Memories are probably linked to being able to think in language, as well as pictures? Naver saw anything like that kid in terms of how early he spoke and how huge his vocabulary was, at a really early age (fluently talking at 18 months or so, IIRC). By contrast, 2 of his brothers had unusually late language acquisition - one didn't speak til he was 4, (autism), the other til he was 5... Neither of them remember vivid snapshots so far back as the son who was the talker.
 
On a whim (which seems the way my mind works these days) I looked up the text for Hoppe hoppe Reiter - a knee-bouncing Kinderlied performed by my father some 60 years ago. This has special memories because my dad (herdsman) worked on the farm 7 days a week and I didn't see as much of him as I wanted. Also on the last verse the child is bounced off the knee and has to be caught before he/she land on their head and I trusted my dad with this action more than I trusted my mum. There are several variations on the text, which wasn't a problem as I didn't understand much German, I have included the variant sung to me.

Hoppe, hoppe Reiter, (Hop Hop 16th century German Cavalry horseman)
Fällt er hin so schreit er, (He cried out when he fell off)
Fällt er in den Graben, (He fell in the ditch)
Fressen ihn die Raben, (Was eaten by Ravens)
Fällt er in das grüne Gras, (He fell in the green grass)
Macht er sich sein po-po nass, (Made his bum wet) (daddy said 'bum' !)
Fällt er in den Sumpf,
(He fell in the swamp)
Macht der Reiter plump plump plump! (Horseman went glug glug glug !)

Reiter.jpg
 
An early memory of mine is from when I had measles while the family were on a camping holiday at our Welsh relatives' farm. I'd be no more than 4.
I was left alone in the tent* to sleep it off and woke up when the fever broke, and went for a wander in the nearby wood.
Dunno how my parents discovered I was up and about. Can't remember being spanked for it, most unusually.

*Yup, I was left alone in a tent in a field. It was the 'top field' in front of the farmhouse, not a public campsite.
Seems the doctor had told my parents the tent was ideal for protecting my eyesight from bright light so there I stayed.
 
Last edited:
One of my kids was talking about his earliest memories, the other day. And he said he wasn't even sure if it was a memory, or something he'd dreamed or made up, but he had this vivid image of himself on a London bus with his birth dad, and the bus braked suddenly and he hit his head on the metal bar on the seat in front. He was certain this hadn't really happened. iIn fact it totally did, but given the place etc it has to have been before he was 2. I wasn't with him but was told about it afterwards. Son was a little shocked it had actually happened.

Another thing he vividly remembers is sitting in his birth dad's kitchen, up on a counter, eating birthday cake (he was being held on to!) He nearly choked on the cake. Again i also remember that vividly and he would have to have been no more than 2. Yet another one he remembered was being with me on a train and screaming and screaming - again, he thought this was a false memory or a dream and hadn't really happened. It did. But he'd have been a baby, maybe not even 2.

Pretty sure he has the most vivid childhood memories because of all my kids, he was the best and earliest at languaage acquisition. Memories are probably linked to being able to think in language, as well as pictures? Naver saw anything like that kid in terms of how early he spoke and how huge his vocabulary was, at a really early age (fluently talking at 18 months or so, IIRC). By contrast, 2 of his brothers had unusually late language acquisition - one didn't speak til he was 4, (autism), the other til he was 5... Neither of them remember vivid snapshots so far back as the son who was the talker.
I also wonder whether it's a combination of language and something unusual happening, which is why your son's memories are all of something fairly traumatic. One of my earliest memories is of seeing my baby brother in a carrycot beside my parent's bed - the birth of a sibling can often be unusual and even traumatic, which might be why it's so many children's first memories.
 
I have a very very vague childhood memory from when I was 5 years old and was involved in an accident where I received a nasty cut below an eye. Other than that most of my earliest memories are from when I was 7, 8 or older.
I do find it a little unbelievable when listening to psychics and mediums who claim to have extremely clear recollections of interactions with spirits from the age of 3. And a guy on telly recently was recounting the sad death of his mother from a heart attack when he was 3 years old and was saying how helpless he remembers feeling because he couldn’t help with the CPR that others were attempting to save his mothers life. I strongly suspect he would have little understanding of what was happening at that age.
Am I unusual in not being able to clearly remember incidents from age 3 or are some of these people imagining false memories from such a tender age?

I think having clear childhood memories at a very young age is somewhat unusual.

I can remember being around 2.75 yrs old - and have some clear memories from that time before and around the birth of my first sister (hence the dating being precise) later confirmed by my mother who was a bit taken aback! I can even recall the hair and face of the district midwife who came to call, and the make and colour of her car (an orangey-yellow Mini). But I was a bit of an unusual child in that I could already read by age 3 and, in fact, I cannot remember not reading! But as always, it's brief incidents and events.

I can sketch the floor plan of the home we lived in then ( we moved when I was almost 5), and every subsequent one afterwards (we moved a lot).
 
Last edited:
Earliest memories come from a holiday in Lytham St Annes, when I was just over 2, this was before my brother was born. 1.) Visiting an old lady in a very brown living room (my Granny had worked for her family, as a young lady's companion, before the first world war. 2) Sitting on the sand by a wooden structure (probably a breakwater) with an orange ice lolly and being buzzed by a swarm of wasps, I remember crying, and dropping the lolly in the sand; 3) the really strange one - climbing the stairs in the guest house and looking through an open door into a room where a boy and girl were sitting on the floor. The boy was pointing out of the window at a star and saying "It's that one up there" (or something similar. For some reason I started to feel frightened, then I woke up with Mum looking down at me, I was in some kind of high sided bed (I found out much later that it was a pull-out sofa bed).

Skip forward a few months after my brother had been born; I was standing in the hall of our bungalow trying to look into the pram and asking my Mum "Is it a boy or a girl".

Other fragmentary incidents and events after that before I started school, at 4 and half. I could almost read by then and quickly picked up reading after that.

And something I didn't did remember, consciously: we went on holiday to Scarborough in 1958, I was three. A couple of weeks ago I was thinking I really must take a holiday away somewhere, it's years since I been anywhere, and started looking at places I'd been as a child. I came across a picture of Scarborough castle, at first I thought I didn't know that Scarborough had a castle, then I realised that I'd seen if before - in my dreams. I have a fairly detailed and consistent dreamscape and can remember were a lot of it's components come from, but there was a particular ruined castle overlooking the sea that I'd never been able to place, here it was. Obviously buried deep down and not accessible when I'm awake.
 
I also wonder whether it's a combination of language and something unusual happening, which is why your son's memories are all of something fairly traumatic. One of my earliest memories is of seeing my baby brother in a carrycot beside my parent's bed - the birth of a sibling can often be unusual and even traumatic, which might be why it's so many children's first memories.
Yes, definitely. I'll have to ask him what's his earliest nice memory!

Another of my kids has just, in adulthood, developed epilepsy out of the blue - and MRIs said it was temporal lobe brain damage. Although language not been affected, he said in the past few years, he struggled to remember things and can see a film but watch it again not long after as if he'd never seen it. He hadn't thought anything of it as he reckons he always had a bad memory - it's why he was really bright, but totally not academic or an exam passer, at school... He's never had an accident or banged his head (or at least has no memory of doing that) so it's a mystery how he got the temporal lobe damage and we'll probably never know. First sign we had anything was wrong (because he hadn't told anyone about the memory loss) was I got a phone call on his mobile from a total stranger at the train station saying my kid had just had a seizure on the platform. Luckily not near the edge. Seeing this thread makes me think I'm gonna sit down and chat with him and see if his childhood memories are intact.
 
Last edited:
An early memory of mine is from when I had measles while the family were on a camping holiday at our Welsh relatives' farm. I'd be no more than 4.
I was left alone in the tent* to sleep it off and woke up when the fever broke, and went for a wander in the nearby wood.
Dunno how my parents discovered I was up and about. Can't remember being spanked for it, most unusually.

*Yup, I was left alone in a tent in a field. It was the 'top field' in front of the farmhouse, not a public campsite.
Seems the doctor had told my parents the tent was ideal for protecting my eyesight from bright light so there I stayed.
Remember my dad telling me that when I was 6 mths old, I had measles really badly and they had to leave me in the bedroom upstairs, curtains drawn, all day, for days. Must have been a thing.
 
Remember my dad telling me that when I was 6 mths old, I had measles really badly and they had to leave me in the bedroom upstairs, curtains drawn, all day, for days. Must have been a thing.
Interesting. I had measles, caught at school, in about 1966. Spent the whole time on the sofa downstairs, absolutely no worries about my eyesight at all or advice given for darkened rooms. I do remember when I had mumps a couple of years later, the doctor advising that I 'didn't get too excited'. I've still no idea what was supposed to be either so exciting about mumps that I might become overwrought, or so dangerous about mumps that I shouldn't be overexerted.
 
I had measles when around 2-3 years old. My mum told me much later that I had a very bad ear infection at the time and that they were really concerned it would turn into 'mastoids'. I have a vague memory of screaming as a doctor tried to look into my ears but not sure if this is a made up memory in light of the later information?
Incidentally, I didn't get mumps until I was 25, not too pleasant. I went to the doctor and the first thing he said was " well you walked in here ok , so I won't ask the obvious".
 
Interesting. I had measles, caught at school, in about 1966.
A third of my Primary school went down with measles in 1967 and in my family, only my mother escaped it. Well, she may have had it but wouldn't let it slow her down - at least I got a few days off school but felt too shit to really enjoy it. This was a year before vaccination was introduced and of the 460,000 cases the death toll was a modest 99. I remember it coincided with an outbreak of Foot-and-mouth disease and all entrances to the farm had straw laid down soaked in disinfectant. Jeyes Fluid from the smell of it.
 
dangerous about mumps
Depended on gender, iirc. Boys were regarded as vulnerable, because mumps, after a certain age, was said to affect the testes and cause sterility! Best get it over with, before they dropped!

Before there was a vaccine, there were "mumps-parties" where children were encouraged to contract it, early.

I didn't go to one but avoided the disease. For all it matters, at this point . . . :evillaugh:
 
Last edited:
I had measles when around 2-3 years old. My mum told me much later that I had a very bad ear infection at the time and that they were really concerned it would turn into 'mastoids'. I have a vague memory of screaming as a doctor tried to look into my ears but not sure if this is a made up memory in light of the later information?
Incidentally, I didn't get mumps until I was 25, not too pleasant. I went to the doctor and the first thing he said was " well you walked in here ok , so I won't ask the obvious".
Mastoiditis. My youngest daughter had that, she's partially deaf as a result. I'm glad you avoided it.
 
I used to work with children with severe learning difficulties.* Some had been brain-damaged by illness as babies.

Can remember one little girl in particular who'd had complications of measles leading to encephalitis. She was blind, deaf and immobile. No quality of life that I could see and yet she clung on.
Her family adored her and would visit often, holding her hand and chatting to her as if she knew who they were.

I first knew her at about 8. Dunno what happened to her.

My family are all keen on vaccines and meeting her certainly reinforced my enthusiasm.

*In a Hospital for the Mentally Subnormal, no less.
 
..My family are all keen on vaccines and meeting her certainly reinforced my enthusiasm...

So are my folks. I know you've asked this question of me before, but are you me?

I remember having the UK's early generation of standalone Rubella vaccine as a pre-teen girl, before the MMR became commonplace.

Had Mumps, not too badly about age 9/10, before that vaccine came about, but we had every other one bang on schedule. Even then a young relative had whooping cough, but only mildly, because they'd been vaccinated as a baby.

I do remember being a bit put out that my little sister & my cousin (same age at the time) had mild Scarletina (Scarlet Fever rash) but I didn't catch it, hence no time off school!

This is a great infographic showing the vaccine progress in Britain since 1796.

UKHSA-vaccine-timeline.jpg
 
So are my folks. I know you've asked this question of me before, but are you me?

I remember having the UK's early generation of standalone Rubella vaccine as a pre-teen girl, before the MMR became commonplace.

Had Mumps, not too badly about age 9/10, before that vaccine came about, but we had every other one bang on schedule. Even then a young relative had whooping cough, but only mildly, because they'd been vaccinated as a baby.

I do remember being a bit put out that my little sister & my cousin (same age at the time) had mild Scarletina (Scarlet Fever rash) but I didn't catch it, hence no time off school!

This is a great infographic showing the vaccine progress in Britain since 1796.

View attachment 69984
Can remember having the rubella jab at school. The reason for it was explained to us and I was happy to receive it.

Some girls dodged it for various stupid reasons which they may have lived to regret.

I later looked after children who'd suffered brain damage before birth from their mothers' rubella infection. Very sad.

One of my kids was among the first children in our county to receive the then brand-new MMR vaccination.
She'd gone along with her big brother and me to have the lad's wounds dressed after his latest escapade.
(Another first local medical first, in fact.)
The lovely Scottish nurse offered Youngest the jab and I accepted, promising to stop off at the sweet shop on way home. :bthumbup:
 
I never heard of “ mumps parties “, but I did hear of “ chicken pox “ parties.

We never could figure out if my old daughter had chicken pox, but my younger daughter had chicken pox bad.

My younger daughter took regular oat meal baths, calimine lotion, and lots of Benadryl.

When I was young, I was taken down badly with German measles and a little later had the mumps.

I guess now there are vaccines for all of these viruses.
 
Can remember having the rubella jab at school. The reason for it was explained to us and I was happy to receive it.

Some girls dodged it for various stupid reasons which they may have lived to regret.

I later looked after children who'd suffered brain damage before birth from their mothers' rubella infection. Very sad.

One of my kids was among the first children in our county to receive the then brand-new MMR vaccination.
She'd gone along with her big brother and me to have the lad's wounds dressed after his latest escapade.
(Another first local medical first, in fact.)
The lovely Scottish nurse offered Youngest the jab and I accepted, promising to stop off at the sweet shop on way home. :bthumbup:
I had rubella at primary school and remembered it fondly as I got a week or so off school and didn't feel at all ill. Think I had a rash. It was ace. So years later, when they tested for antibodies said my immunity was still there and I don't think I ever had a jab for it.

Must have been about 8 or 9 and I remember being made to stay in bed all day which was way better than being at school. And I just read and read.

Apart from that only had measles as a baby which of course I don't remember (apparently I screamed the house down) but I did catch chicken pox from a kid when I was on my first teaching practice (the parent sent her to school despite obvious symptoms - we had to send her home - not long after, I went down with it). And it led to a miscarriage (of one non-identical twin - the other survived).
 
Back
Top