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Earliest Memories

Glensheen'sGirl~

Gone But Not Forgotten
(ACCOUNT RETIRED)
Joined
Feb 6, 2002
Messages
169
I too avoid mirrors when it's dark. The shadowy look of things causes the light etc. to play tricks on my eyes and it always freaks me out.

Playing "Bloody Mary" with my cousins as a kid probably didn't help either... :cross eye
 
how far back can anyone remember? I know the majority of my childhood is fragments and all over the place but the earliest thing I 'think' I can remember is from when I was about 18 months old if not a little earlier.

This was before my parents moved house, the back bedroom had a big stuffed panda in the cupboard (my mums) the stuffing was coming out and I think the walls were yellow in colour. And that's about it.

Now we moved from that place when I was about 18 months old. Is that normal?? I am not sure if people can remember stuff really early or not. Should I be remembering more perhaps?
 
I can remember the place I was born - the top flat in a two hundred year old house in Clifton , but we lived there til I was four . I have quite a few memories from there but couldn't say how old I was when they occurred .

Some things I remember :wrecking balls clearing large inner city buildings ; the little park with the round cafe down by the docks past The Rose of Denmark ; a jazz club with a minah bird in a cage;sneaking into next door ( a top surgeon lived there ) and having a go at the nibbles before a coctail party started ; some family friends who lived round the corner who had a horses skull on their TV ; a huge and momentous all night thunderstorm (seem to recall my mother being surprised I remember this so this was quite early ); the dredgers at the docks , of which I had a morbid fear ; the Beardsley prints on the stairs , of which I had a morbid fear...I'll get back to you if I remember more !
 
My earliest memory is probably playing in a neighbours garden with Tonka trucks. I remember the garden seemed like a jungle (and I still have that image and feeling in my mind, along with the huge size of the trucks). I was probably around 1 1/2 to 2 years old. I also remember being in my pushchair around the same time being taken to meet my older brother from school.
 
Fragmentary memories. We emigrated to Winnipeg in early '65, when I was about 2 and sis was about 6 months old. I can recall sitting at a table eating while The Flintstones played on a TV in a corner of the kitchen, and watching people's lower legs passing the living room window, which must have been at below street level. After that, I recall a nightmare I had about a Golly I had coming to life and trying to tickle me mercilessly. There are vague recollections of the carers who looked after sis and I when our parents were at work, and then nothing concrete until we got back to my Gran's house in Scotland (1966-ish) after my mother decided she hated Canada and didn't want to live there anymore. All I really recall thereafter is mainly TV: the planet Mondas moving closer to the Earth during an ep. of the Dr. Who story The 10th Planet; William Hartnell collapsing on the floor of the TARDIS and his face going all blurry as he prepared to regenerate as second Doctor, Pat Troughton; a public information film that used to play between the lunchtime news and Watch With Mother on the BBC that involved an animation of a little workman walking along while things fall behind him, accompanied by the following rhyme:

Sir Isaac Newton told us why
An apple falls down from the sky,
And from this fact it's very plain
All other objects do the same.
A brick; a bar; a bolt; a cup:
Invariably they fall down, not up,
And every common working tool
Is governed by this selfsame rule.
So let your watchword be 'Take Care!'
About the kind of shoes you wear.
It's better to be safe than dead,
So get a [hard]hat, and keep your head.


Why I suddenly remembered that rhyme in 1991, I do not know. I could never remember any of it when it was on air in the 60s.
 
Zygon said:
All I really recall thereafter is mainly TV: the planet Mondas moving closer to the Earth during an ep. of the Dr. Who story The 10th Planet; William Hartnell collapsing on the floor of the TARDIS and his face going all blurry as he prepared to regenerate as second Doctor, Pat Troughton...

That's an excellent memory to have... I'm incredibly envious! :D

Weirdly, my earliest memory of Doctor Who is a Peter Davison story that doesn't seem to exist!
 
i remember when i was 1 or 2 or 3, and i was tucked securely into my baby seat in the car and i was watching my brother(then 7 or 8) being dropped off at school.
 
August Verango said:
That's an excellent memory to have... I'm incredibly envious! :D
Actually, I hadn't realized until I posted in this thread that my memory of that Who ep must have been not very long at all after we arrived back in Scotland. Feels really odd to know my life-long love of SF dates as far back as when I was 3 and a half. I came across a clip of the Hartnell face-swimming scene on a Who video a few years ago and was amazed to see it was exactly as I remembered it. More recently I got hold of a tape of The Singing Ringing Tree, reruns of which in about '69 are also (what feels to me like) a very early memory, and I was astonished about how accurately I'd remembered it.
 
I think one problem with very early memories for most people is that they tend to be memories of memories - our brains constantly revise everything in the light of later experience, so there is no telling whether an early memory is 'genuine'.

But perhaps an 'unedited version' still survives as well, because most of us have rare moments when some incident will trigger a memory of something we "Hadn't thought of for years".

I have memories of my earliest home, but we lived there until I was eight, so I can't really date the memories.

From slightly later (late 50s, probably) I remember a children's TV programme called Billy Bean. It had a catchy little theme song:
Billy Bean
Built a machine
To see what it would do
He made it out of [something ..
...something, something] and glue

But I've never met anyone else who remembers this!
 
One thing I think I can remember is being in a Moses Basket on the parcel shelf of Mum and Dads Triumph Stag. But I don't think that I really remember that.
I'm sure that my earliest memory is at playschool when the climbing frame fell over and Gareth Carol broke his arm.
 
I clearly remember my first birthday. I was sat in my high chair, and my Mum stuck this thing in front of me, with a candle stuck in it. I didn't recongnise it as a cake as all the cakes I had seen before had had slices out of them. Everyone was staring at me, obviously wanting me to do something, and I didn't know what. I was so confused I promptly burst into tears!
 
rynner said:
I think one problem with very early memories for most people is that they tend to be memories of memories - our brains constantly revise everything in the light of later experience, so there is no telling whether an early memory is 'genuine'.

interesting thought! Its like I remember my first christmas so I was..... 10 months old. THing is I have also seen pictures from the event and been told a lot about what happened. So perhaps in that case I have created the memory from information presented to me. Even though I am sure that I DO remember bits of it the gaps have been filled in to a certain extent.
 
How queer! My current on-the-Tube book is Making History by Stephen Fry, and yesterday I read the phrase:

"How much of your life do you remember from before you were seven? Is it not just shadows and strange patches of light?"

I felt quite indignant, because I have a full complement of memories from the age of five -- I considered myself a fully-formed human being with feelings and opinions at that point!

Anyway, my earliest memory is of lying in my pram on a rainy day, looking up at my mother as she pushed me down the road. I had the covers and the zippable thingy pulled right up to my chin and remember feeling very snug and safe. Apparently I graduated from pram to buggy at a year old, so I must have been quite young indeed.

My most significant early memory is of shopping in Brighton with my mother -- it was another rainy day and I was wearing my red Paddington wellies. At some point we walked to Brighton Pier and my mother bought me one of those giant, circular lollies that no one ever finishes. This one was a deep, artificial red and I was very excited, tearing at the wrapper with my mittened hands and resisting all offers of help. Eventually I got it unwrapped and savoured the moment as I went to give it a lick...

And...

As if in slow motion........

The lolly broke off the stick and...

Tumbled.........................................

Into..................................................

The sea.

Sniff!
 
Orbyn said:
Anyway, my earliest memory is of lying in my pram on a rainy day, looking up at my mother as she pushed me down the road. I had the covers and the zippable thingy pulled right up to my chin and remember feeling very snug and safe.
You've just brought back an incredibly similar memory. But is it really my own?! Or did I just invent a new one based on yours because I liked it and wanted to steal it? :confused:

I can also remember moving house aged 3 and thinking (or more likely feeling?) as I first saw our new home - "Is that it? What a dump!" (Obviously I didn't really think those exact words, but that was the general gist!)
 
My earliest memories:

Sitting in my pram, which was in my parents' kitchen, with the sun shining through the window onto me.

Being pushed along in my push chair up the road where my mother still lives.

Visiting my maternal grandmother (she died when I was about 2), she was sitting by the old range they used to have in their kitchen and she was wearing a dark blue dress with small white spots on it.

Attempting to board a bus alone at the age of about 3. the bus stop was just outside my parents' house, but for some reason I'd decided to walk up to the next stop. I can remember being apprehended by my mother just as I was about to get on the bus. I was wearing a fair isle tam o-shanter and had a little blue clutch bag full of cardboard money (for the bus fare, of course!:rolleyes: ) . My mother carried me home under her arm and my little red Start-Rite shoes with the straps kept dropping off and she had to keep stopping to pick them up again . . .

Carole, who was really very cute at the age of 3, despite the vicious rumours that she was a little madam . . .
 
Awww Carole, what a little sweetie you were :)

My earliest memory is of being in my cot, which had a drop down side with wooden slats which looked like bars (my parents were obviously very sensible) And I remember my mother coming in the room and leaning over the side and calling me her "little tiger in a cage" because the cot had various animals, like lions and elephants, painted on it.
 
I remember Billy Bean, Rynner. But that may be because I had a "Whirligig" Annual which I kept until adulthood. The book also contained Larry the Lamb, Mr Turnip, and Colonel Beetroot. There was also a grumpy old man with a walking stick. (Mr Grouch?)I think there may also have been a Cowboy Joe with a horse called Hank.

My earliest memory is of moving house. I must have been about 3 then, and I remember sitting in the front of the removal van next to Mam with our cat Ginger between us. Ginger must have been in a basket or carrier but I can't visualise it.

I remember my Granda taking me to visit a friend of his who owned a shop, and going through to the back-shop to talk to him. His friend said I looked like a little doll so that's probably why that made an impression. Must have been 4 then.

Then I remember nothing more till I was 5. What an eventful life I must have had.:rolleyes: :hmph:
 
I remember being at Primary school when I was 4, and I was crying because I was missing my mum, but the teacher thought I was ill, so she took me on her knee and cuddled me. :)

I can remember being at play school and thinking about how all my friends were leaving to go to the "big school" and feeling a bit sad about it.

I remember my mum chasing me round the room (not sure how I was) with a tube of sun lotion before leaving to go to the beach. I hated the stuff, still do. Greasy creams. Yuck.

I remember being taken in to my gran's room to see her when she was dying. She was quite coherent at the time and looked ok, but I remember feeling frightened of her, as I sensed something was wrong.

I think I remember eating sand at the beach, but this could be a "memory" I've conjured up from ppl telling me about it so often.
 
Some interesting links for y'all:

i used to believe - a collection of childhood beliefs and amusing memories

Brilliant site.

Also this article from BBC online about changing medical opinions on how much kids do recall (do to with paediatrics - really good research if it helps kids get over trauma better). Many adults think that kids don't remember much about when they were young, but it does affect them:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2317531.stm

I hope this isn't a hijack, it's a cute thread, I thought the first link was cute, and the second link is interesting if we were to pursue a scientific look at how kids remember.

pinkle
 
Good links, Pinkle!

I liked "Our family word for female privates was 'tweenies' - short for 'inbetweeneies'. There is a current BBC children's programme that I cannot bring myself to watch."

My ex's word for our son's privates was 'particles' - which amused the physicist in me!
 
Reading the other replies I am starting to think my earliest memories were a little eccentric!
 
I used to eat snails apparently - I would push my finger in until it foamed then slurp it up , yum !
 
This thread has brought back so many childhood memories :)

I've checked with my Mum and can confirm that I was the grand old age of 23 months and 2 weeks when we moved from Yorkshire to Oxfordshire. I don't remember the journey (probably slept though it), but clearly remember arriving at the new house and running around the corner into the garden... grass so high I could hide in it; a chicken hutch with long-forgotten fragile eggs that disintergrated when I touched them; an old wardrobe...

My earliest memory of world-shattering events is the Apollo 11 landing on the moon - we watched the news on a neighbours TV (we didn't have a TV of our own) - I was sent to bed for complainlng that the eagle would die as it didn't have a "moon suit".

Jane.
 
Hmm, I also remember riding imperiously down the road on the family dog, to Lavell's sweet shop, where I demanded sweets for myself "and my steed". Apparently I was indulged, despite not having any money. I would have been just under 4 at this point.

I used to play "hide and seek" with the dog, too. Once, when I was two, he chased me into the bathroom; I locked the door (wth a key) behind me and then found I couldn't get out. For an age my mother sat outside the door trying to persuade me to push the key under the door so she could open it from the outside, but for some reason I remember it being *very important* that I keep the key within sight. In the end the fire brigade had to be called and they broke the lock -- I'll never forget how embarrassed I was to emerge from the loo to 15 firemen crowding our landing!
 
I remember sitting in my pram, with one of those stringy things overit with various coloured shapes hanging off it. I remember sitting in my baby bath with my mom supporting my back and head. I remember our old dog, who was apparently smallish, but seemed huge to me, and who had to be put down when I was about 18 months. He was called Prince. I remember wearing white reins with a picture of a horse on them.

Ohh, it's all coming flooding back!
 
Just for the record, my earliest memory was of standing in my cot hearing an ambulance going past my house. A poor excuse for a flashbulb memory, I know, but it seemed scary at the time. I seemed to have a phobia of ambulances for a few years back then. :confused:
 
Childhood memories

I remember being on my Mum's lap in the front of the family van (no seatbelt laws in those days) and drowsing off to sleep, blissfully unaware that if my father hit anything I would have shot through the windscreen along with my Mum. I can't have been older than three.

I think my earliest memory is of being in hospital. My mum informs me I was about two at the time. I had had a fever and been rushed there during the night. I remember waking up and wondering where the hell I was. I was in a cot with bars on the sides and I stood up and looked at the little boy in the next bed who had a drink. I remember being very cross that I didn't have a drink! Then a nurse came and asked me if I wanted shredded wheat or weetabix for breakfast (I chose weetabix!)

Come to think of it I have an even earlier memory than that, as I remember the fever causing me to hallucinate that there were spiders on my pillow. To this day I dislike them, though I can just about bring myself to dispose ofn them out fo the window rather than whacking them with a newspaper. :eek!!!!: Just shows how most phobias can be traced back to an unpleasant experience in childhood.
 
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