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A Couple Of Odd Childhood Memories

ben77

Gone But Not Forgotten
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Sep 24, 2009
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Hi all,

I would just like to share two stange incidents for my childhood.

The following happened when I was living in RAF Halton in Buckinghamshire. I would have been about 6-7 which would put it at around 1984-5.

We lived on an officers quarters estate in Halton and I clearly remember one summer there was a bit of a flap among the Air Force Wives about a supposedly escaped Puma that was roaming Wendover Woods, having liberated itself from a nearby zoo.
Us kids were all told to be careful and not go into the woods alone. (As with most boys, I loved exploring the woods, finding secret places and whatnot). Shortly after these warnings, I remember riding my bike round the estate, and going past one small section of woods (there were many small spinnies and such around the estate and wit was surrounded by aforementioned Wendover Woods). Something made me turn and look into the trees and I was confronted by a face looking back at me. Not a human face!
As I recall, it was definately a feline and although at the time I had no idea what a Puma looked like, the image I have in my memory is definately of a Puma.
What was strange though was that the face was at adult head height and was peering round a tree at me.
I did not stick around to see what developed, although I do remember feeling the sense of 'unreality' that Jenny Randles calls the 'Oz factor' about the whole incident.

Does anyone on here remember the Puma scare and if so did anyone see something similar?


My other strange experience occurred approx a couple of years later. I used to accompany my dad to RAF cricket club matches which were played at Vine Lane Uxbridge.
One day I was exploring the grounds near the main road when I noticed a large black car coming up the road. This is going to sound ridiculous and will probably appear to be a flight of childish fancy but the car was identical to KITT from the TV show 'Knight Rider' even down to the red scanner on the front. I remember, even at that young age, thinking that this is impossible. That it is only a tv show, but I was and still am positive that is what I saw.
I do not recall any sound at all from the car, not even engine noise. Also the windows were dark tinted. The car then turned on to a gated road which my dad later informed me was Ministry Of Defence property.
The only logical explanation I can think of (other than an over active imagination) was that some MOD emplyee was a big fan of the show and bought a replica to show his buddies.

Well I hope someone finds these minor little episodes interesting. They have remained vivid memories my whole life and it is this vividness that makes me feel like they actually occured rather than just being childhood fantasies
 
I live near-ish to Halton. Used to love going to Halton Air Show in the summers but they stopped doing that many years ago :(

There has often been reoccurrences of the 'Beast of Bucks' tale and it has actually been reportedly seen in my village - Great Hampden - about 6 or so miles from Wendover.

Whenever I am walking alone in the local woods I always have a slight concern that I may get attacked and mauled by an ABC.

There is a report of a sighting in the grounds of Chequers, which is my side of Wendover, and probably 3/4 miles from Halton.

http://www.bucksfreepress.co.uk/news/67 ... _chequers/

Haven't been to Wendover Woods for a while but last time I went they had a great army style assault/training course on a special trail and a cool log cabin cafe in the middle.
 
Shame to hear the Air show is no more! Obviously with an Air Force dad I attended quite a few in my childhood and loved them!

Sounds like this beast story pops up every few years then? I guess you will get that kind of thing in areas that are so heavily wooded. Maybe starts with a well meaning mum like mine trying to stop her darling son trapseing off into the woods and bringing back his finds of dead rabbits etc?

I do feel sorry for kids today, apart from this scare I was pretty free to explore and have adventures in the woods. I had an idyllic 'Just William' childhood. I can't see that happening too much these days with all the tabloid scaremongering and whatnot.
 
Yeh I'm probably two or three years younger but I recall going out and playing with friends round my village in the woods, making up adventures and games without even pausing to think of any danger. Kids today just wouldn't get that kind of freedom.

If I recall Halton Air Show stopped happening in the early 90s. Was always one of my favourite days out of the summer.

Incidentally I also have a 'Beast of Bucks' tale. About 5/6 years ago I was driving back up into the village having turned off from the Wendover-Great Missenden road and up the hill into Great Hampden.

As I came to the peak of the hill what I remember is a deer being chased by a sandy coloured thing suddenly appearing from the hedge to the right of the road and then disappearing into the hedge on the left a few metres ahead of my car.

It happened so fast and now I look back and wonder if I am remembering it as it really happened. I can't honestly give any more detail than that but it was certainly a big sandy coloured thing chasing a deer and at some speed.

They appeared and disappeared literally in seconds and at first I assumed it was a dog chasing the deer but I didn't see any dog owner chasing his dog or any sign that the animal was with an owner. Plus the speed with which it happened, I don't think a dog would be capable of keeping up as closely to a sprinting deer.

Over time I have kind of assumed it was the Beast of Bucks purely for lack of any other explanation, but am certainly not 100%. It is one of those moments I'd love to go back and relive just to see what I did actually see rather than what I maybe think I am remembering that I saw.
 
I've got quite a few odd childhood memories. I used to accept them as just that, memories from my childhood, but, as the years have gone on, I've come to the conclusion that several of them just cannot have happened.

For instance, I've got a still vivid memory of being stood in a field at the back of my grandmothers house when I would have been about five years old. I was with a large group of people, both adults and kids. It was the late afternoon on a sunny day, and I was watching people parachuting from a dirigible that was tethered and floating around five or six hundred feet up in the air. The odd thing is, I can recall seeing the parachutists through the skin of the airship as they lined up to jump out through a hole in the side of the airship.

See what I mean? Impossible! But as far as my memory is concerned, it happened.

Again, at about the same age, I can recall being sat in a field behind the house that I used to live in with a group of kids from the estate. We were all sat around a large bonfire (and I do mean large, about 20 feet across). It was late summer and about 9 or 10 in the evening. Okay, maybe not completely unlikely, but my mum and dad wouldn't have let me be out that late, and definitely not around a large fire.

Finally, and not strictly childhood, as I was in my early twenties. I can remember my mum asking me to go to Beverley with her as she needed to go to the local authority offices. As I was going out with a girl from the general area, and I knew Beverley quite well, I agreed to go with her to show her where the office was located. My mum now denies that such a journey ever took place. And yet I can remember buying her a drink in the pub near Beverley station, and even such mundane details as playing "War Head" by the UK Subs on the jukebox. I asked both her and my dad about this trip a few years ago....things went very quiet.....a skeleton in the family cupboard?

I do have a few more odd childhood memories, but I'll stop now, as I think this is the longest post I've ever done on here! 8)
 
Re the KITT - there are hundreds if not more KITT replicas out there.

There was a brisk trade in conversion kits when the show was on and it was easily done as KITT was nothing more than a slightly modified Pontiac.

There was one for sale on e-bay UK a few years back I remember, and probably it impressed as a kid a lot more than it would now. ;)
 
Cavynaut said:
For instance, I've got a still vivid memory of being stood in a field at the back of my grandmothers house when I would have been about five years old. I was with a large group of people, both adults and kids. It was the late afternoon on a sunny day, and I was watching people parachuting from a dirigible that was tethered and floating around five or six hundred feet up in the air. The odd thing is, I can recall seeing the parachutists through the skin of the airship as they lined up to jump out through a hole in the side of the airship.

See what I mean? Impossible! But as far as my memory is concerned, it happened.

Sounds like my memory of staring out at a lunar landscape (complete with base and vehicles) from the bathroom window as a pre-school kid. Couldn't have happened, yet I remember it in detail.
 
I've got a good one:

At the age of 3 or 4 I vividly remember waking in the middle of the night and wondering where my siblings were (myself, my brother and sister all shared the same room at that age.) I went downstairs and found my entire family out on the front path. It wasn't just my family though! Every family in our street was outside and everyone was staring into the sky towards the north east.

The object of their attention was a classical silver saucer with red lights dotted around it's rim and rotating. No-one said a word and I remember asking my mum what was going on. She just said "Nothing. Go back to bed." Which I did!

Even to this day I hold that memory as clearly as any other I have. The daft thing is, our street ran east to west and our house faced east. The neighbours in front of me had houses facing south yet they were looking NE through their houses. Why didn't they go out their back doors? :)

If you ask me nicely I might tell you the story about my invisible friends!
 
gncxx said:
Sounds like my memory of staring out at a lunar landscape (complete with base and vehicles) from the bathroom window as a pre-school kid. Couldn't have happened, yet I remember it in detail.

That sounds interesting. Any more details that you'd like to share?
 
We have threads on misleading memories. :D
 
Not so much 'misleading' as totally impossible Scargy.

I have another memory of the kids on the estate (the same ones who I sat around the giant bonfire with) holding a mock war using small scale replicas of Roman war machines. :shock:

My memory tells me I was there, and that I joined in, but it's fairly impossible, let's face it.
 
You know it's impossible. What's misleading is your feeling, against all common sense, that it happened to you.
Could've been a dream, a TV programme that you enjoyed and dwelled on for a long time and acted out with your friends, or perhaps an hallucination caused by a high temperature.

We've been over this a couple of times. Very interesting to me. :D

Quita an old article, but still good -

'We can implant entirely false memories'

You were abducted by aliens, you saw Bugs Bunny at Disneyland, and then you went up in a balloon. Didn't you? Laura Spinney on our remembrance of things past

Alan Alda had nothing against hard-boiled eggs until last spring. Then the actor, better known as Hawkeye from M*A*S*H, paid a visit to the University of California, Irvine. In his new guise as host of a science series on American TV, he was exploring the subject of memory. The researchers showed him round, and afterwards took him for a picnic in the park. By the time he came to leave, he had developed a dislike of hard-boiled eggs based on a memory of having made himself sick on them as a child - something that never happened.

etc
 
ben77 said:
...What was strange though was that the face was at adult head height and was peering round a tree at me...

I'm not sure this would necessarily be an example of the 'Oz' factor. Big cats stretch and scratch just like their domesticated cousins. They also climb. If you did see a puma, but all you saw of it was it's head peering around the tree, then I would assume it was on it's hind legs with it's forepaws against the trunk, caught out having a stretch, or a scratch, or about to climb the tree. This probably wouldn't bring it's head up to 'adult height' (umless it was actually in the process of climbing) but possibly it would make it appear high enough off the ground to at first appear so - especially if you're a bit stressed or thrown by the unusualness of the event.
 
Cavynaut said:
gncxx said:
Sounds like my memory of staring out at a lunar landscape (complete with base and vehicles) from the bathroom window as a pre-school kid. Couldn't have happened, yet I remember it in detail.

That sounds interesting. Any more details that you'd like to share?

Not much to say, really, I've mentioned it on here before. Before I went to bed, I went into the bathroom to brush my teeth and looked out of the window to see a huge lunar landscape before me beneath the stars, with a purple-grey coloured moonbase and dome-shaped vehicles that moved on tank-like treads travelling slowly around it.

Sounds like I saw something on TV before I went to bed, except I can clearly recall the 3D perspective I had on it. Anyway, it must have been impossible not least because aged three or four I was too short to see out of the bathroom window!
 
Zilch,
I agree that that is probably the most likely explanation. It has just always struck me as odd that it turned into MOD property. Maybe it was a childish hope that Knight Rider was real or something like that. I have always found the 'lone hero' type story inspiring.
As a child, the thought that there is a Michael Knight/KITT out there to protect you from the 'bad guys' is an attractive and exciting one. Perhaps I had a sort of angel visitation experience for the sci-fi nerd generation?

Spookdaddy,
The Oz factor I mentioned was referring to the general feeling of 'unreality' I experienced at the time. I recall a stillness and silence as I looked at whatever it was. No traffic noise, no birds, nothing. Also I definately have the impression it was peering round the tree at me. Thinking about it, that is odd because i only recall seeing the face and even if it was climbing I should have been able to see at least some of its body. The tree trucks were not that wide.
 
the car was identical to KITT from the TV show 'Knight Rider' even down to the red scanner on the front.

It might not be a false memory. I remember around this time my older cousins were obsessed with souping up their cars and also playing around with electrics was a big pastime for people. For instance all the CB radio stuff and the 'Tandy' was the coolest place to go with my dad. Could someone not just have been into that kind of thing especially someone who works for the MOD? Could it just have been some reflective thing on the front.

Maybe it was patched together memories. When I was a child i was convinced i had seen a sea monster (nessie no less!) at the side of a river made out of what appeared to be giant toilet roll tubes (!!). Now I realise it was underwater pipes but it shows how a kids we make up in imagination for what we lack in knowledge.
 
There's a great false memory in Mark Kermode's new book where he says he remembered a poignant moment in the trailer for Battle for the Planet of the Apes, delivered by Kim Hunter in full costume which he was surprised to see was not in the film itself.

This mystery bothered him until years later when he saw Cabaret and Liza Minnelli delivered the exact same line, the exact same way, and he realised that he had mixed up the two films' trailers in his young mind, and thought Liza was a talking ape.
 
gncxx said:
There's a great false memory in Mark Kermode's new book where he says he remembered a poignant moment in the trailer for Battle for the Planet of the Apes, delivered by Kim Hunter in full costume which he was surprised to see was not in the film itself.

This mystery bothered him until years later when he saw Cabaret and Liza Minnelli delivered the exact same line, the exact same way, and he realised that he had mixed up the two films' trailers in his young mind, and thought Liza was a talking ape.

The other clue, of course, being that Kim Hunter wasn't in Battle for the Planet of the Apes. ;)
 
Dr_Baltar said:
The other clue, of course, being that Kim Hunter wasn't in Battle for the Planet of the Apes. ;)

That bothered him too - he thought her big scene had been cut!
 
It was obviously a glitch in the space time continuum when she was given another sixty years in A Matter of Life and Death. 'Peter you forgot your book. June you took someone's monkey suit.'

As I get older my earlier life is a palimpsest of memory, with friends from infant school inhabiting my college years and work mates from the 80s popping up in last year's holidays. Early onset Alzheimer's or too much info for the hard drive?
 
Sometimes a memory re surfaces from my childhood, unfortunately they are usually of me doing something irresponsible, hateful or just plain stupid (an unfortunate selective memory recall, a Catholic upbringing and anxiety making for a perfect concoction).

However, a couple of days ago a positive childhood experience floated into my consciousness. :)

My junior school was a Catholic convent school and all the teachers were nuns. I would estimate that I was in junior two (in old money). A girl in our class was handing out 'sweets'. I asked her for one, she said that she had nicked them from her mum and not to tell the teacher as she would get into trouble. "They don't taste very nice though" I recall her saying.

Even at a young age I knew that they were tablets, and I knew from my parents and Charlie the cat that this was a serious no no. Immediately I told the teacher, who went pale and asked her how many she had had. She ran out of the room to get assistance (nuns do not run). She came back in, waiting for an ambulance, forcibly telling her not to fall asleep as she said she was sleepy.

The next day I was taken into an office to meet her parents. I recall the nun saying "you can, but he won't understand". Her mum crouched down and thanked me for telling the teacher, and did I know that my actions had saved her daughters life? The nun was right, I didn't understand and i just trotted off completely unaware of the consequences of what i had done.

This rambling post is somewhat cathartic for me, so apologies if it seems rather random.
 
Sometimes a memory re surfaces from my childhood, unfortunately they are usually of me doing something irresponsible, hateful or just plain stupid (an unfortunate selective memory recall, a Catholic upbringing and anxiety making for a perfect concoction).

However, a couple of days ago a positive childhood experience floated into my consciousness. :)

My junior school was a Catholic convent school and all the teachers were nuns. I would estimate that I was in junior two (in old money). A girl in our class was handing out 'sweets'. I asked her for one, she said that she had nicked them from her mum and not to tell the teacher as she would get into trouble. "They don't taste very nice though" I recall her saying.

Even at a young age I knew that they were tablets, and I knew from my parents and Charlie the cat that this was a serious no no. Immediately I told the teacher, who went pale and asked her how many she had had. She ran out of the room to get assistance (nuns do not run). She came back in, waiting for an ambulance, forcibly telling her not to fall asleep as she said she was sleepy.

The next day I was taken into an office to meet her parents. I recall the nun saying "you can, but he won't understand". Her mum crouched down and thanked me for telling the teacher, and did I know that my actions had saved her daughters life? The nun was right, I didn't understand and i just trotted off completely unaware of the consequences of what i had done.

This rambling post is somewhat cathartic for me, so apologies if it seems rather random.

That's brilliant! Charlie* made a BIG impression on you!

*Actually Kenny Everett of course.
 
This mystery bothered him until years later when he saw Cabaret and Liza Minnelli delivered the exact same line, the exact same way, and he realised that he had mixed up the two films' trailers in his young mind, and thought Liza was a talking ape.

:rofl2:
 
There's a great false memory in Mark Kermode's new book where he says he remembered a poignant moment in the trailer for Battle for the Planet of the Apes, delivered by Kim Hunter in full costume which he was surprised to see was not in the film itself.

This mystery bothered him until years later when he saw Cabaret and Liza Minnelli delivered the exact same line, the exact same way, and he realised that he had mixed up the two films' trailers in his young mind, and thought Liza was a talking ape.

IUn one song act in Cabaret they had a chimp on stage, that might have caused the conflation.
 
There's a great false memory in Mark Kermode's new book where he says he remembered a poignant moment in the trailer for Battle for the Planet of the Apes, delivered by Kim Hunter in full costume which he was surprised to see was not in the film itself.

This mystery bothered him until years later when he saw Cabaret and Liza Minnelli delivered the exact same line, the exact same way, and he realised that he had mixed up the two films' trailers in his young mind, and thought Liza was a talking ape.
"Monkey makes the world go round, the world go round, the world go round..."

"Life is a capuchin, old chum..."
 
Good evening all,
I remember, aged 6 or 7, living with my parents and sibling, in the warden house of a town mansion, with a large parc, tennis court and swimming pool. My parents had the house rent free at the condition they took care of the veg gardens, and sweeping leaves etc.. and also, to open the gate each time a member of the family wanted to come in and out. It was before 1977 and since, they put an electric gate. Anyway, it was a hot summer night, and our bedroom, my sis and me, was at the back of the little house we lived in. My parents' were on the front overlooking a small garden and a large and busy avenue beyond a tall wall.
I slept nearer to the window, which was opened, with the shutters ajars. I remember, that night, half awaking, hearing voices outside and also some footsteps on gravels. I didn't move and fell asleep straightaway.
The morning after, my dad told us that the elderly lady of the mansion had her car stolen. They were tyre marks up to the alley going from the garage to the warden house and my bedroom. However, because my dad's old opel was blocking the way to the gate, the thiefs had to turn around and go to the main alleyway from the gate, in front of the manor house.
It was when I told my parents what I heard, which was not a dream. At the time, I was not creeped out, as I would probably be nowadays. Also, I remember watching the doctor doing a few stitches on my left breast, age 5, and after a fall from a bicycle and feeling nothing, not even light headed. If it was now, I would just swoon!
 
The other clue, of course, being that Kim Hunter wasn't in Battle for the Planet of the Apes. ;)

A little kid wouldn't know who the actors were. They'd just be the characters they play.
 
Adults VASTLY underestimate what children hear and see and are capable of retaining.

When I was about four (although I could have been a bit younger), an aunt came to visit and brought me a doll. She asked what I was going to call her and I said 'Amelia'. Mum and Aunt were astonished and I remember them gathering and muttering about how I could never have heard that name, why did I come up with it, etc.

Now I was synasthaesic as a child (mostly grown out of now) and the name 'Amelia' was associated in my head with the smell of this doll. So I called her Amelia, because that was what she smelled like. But of COURSE I had heard the name, even in those days before TV in the house, I could hear people outside talking, and we had a radio. But the adults were so certain...

Nothing wrong with children's hearing, it's the ability to process and understand the context that leads them to miscomprehend.
 
I have an impossible memory from when I was about 6.

I wasn't allowed in my parents room without their permission, but sometimes when they were out and my older brothers were babysitting- my brothers were in their teens when I was born so they were adults by this stage- I'd sneak in.
I was intrigued why there was a picture propped up against the wall with its back towards us so we couldn't see what it was us so one day I decided to take a sneaky look. It was a picture of a black bull stood next to a small fire outside a cave. The fire started crackling and moving and then the bull turned its head towards me, its head seaming to get bigger and it roared at me like a lion. I know it couldn't have happened but I remember it vividly and it freaked me out. I never went sneaking round again and I had nightmares about bulls for a while after. I was already having about fires.
 
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