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What is your earliest childhood memory

edited February 2012 in - Writing Tales
Good evening everyone,

I was talking to my friends yesterday and one of them claimed he could remember being born... I think he is telling a bit of a porky pie but it got me thinking, how far back can you remember?

The earliest thing I can remember is McDonalds having a power cut during my 3rd birthday party. They brought in s clown to cheer us up but everyone walked out. The same thing happened the next year on my birthday again but I don't remember that.

Does anyone else wish to share?

Comments

  • edited February 2012
    My very first memory was from my baby days, so it is possible to recall that far back (not bad going, considering I'm nudging 54!!)

    If the memory is sharp, it'll always remain vivid - and the best part is that my Dad confirmed the exact picture when I asked him (when I was about 30) what he'd done to me, to etch a picture of the old ornate plaster ceiling that we had in the house where we first lived (or where I was 'born', I suppose)...and - stunned as he was - he told me he'd stabbed me in the ... 'nether region' ... with a great big nappy pin when I was just 4 months old! YEEEEEEOOOOOWWWWWCH!!!!

    If that ain't guaranteed to force the eyes & brain to work as a camera snapping its first sharp negative, I don't know what will!!! :-D

    (So, just don't stand to my right, at the Gents' urinals, ok? ;-) )
  • I can remember lying in my pram in the garden on a sunny afternoon. I was fascinated by the pattern on the valance of the hood.
    Then my mum came and lifted me out and said that there was someone who wanted to play. It was when neighbours moved in across
    the road.
    Hey! Stop it! I'm feeling old! This was 1947.
  • Holding my mothers hand, we where standing on the doorstep I had my fingers in my mouth. I can still see the floral house coat she was wearing with a duster in the pocket and the flat round tin of polish. There was a woman and another little girl standing close, then my mother said "Are you two going to be friends." I can remember being a little afraid as I didnt know what the word friend was. We did become best friends and started school together.
    I must have been about two years old at that time.
  • My earliest memory was when I was 18 months old and went to see my Granddad in hospital. The only time I saw him, as he died shortly afterwards. I remember Dad bought us soft ice creams that day.
  • Ow to Zebub. That must have hurt! Sorry to Eddie for making him feel old ( :-) ) age is just a number. Francis that is so cute! I hope you enjoyed yourself that day and it is always sad when we can't remember our grandparents or in some cases our parents.

    It seems that bad memories are more memorial than good ones. I can't remember my Grandad. He lived with us during the end of his life but when he was dying Mum sent me to my room. I made her cry that night by looking up at the sky and saying "Goodnight Grandad. Miss you" I can also remember the day Dad left. I was begging for him to stay, blocking his way to the door... It didn't work of course.

    I can remember some happy memories such as the dog before she died jumping on Dad and sending him flying! I can also remember being on steam railways, I think I remembered them so much because I loved them. (still do)
  • The memories that are tinged with most emotion are vivid. I can still see my Grandad's face as he lay there in the hospital bed and I was only just under 18 months. I expect in that situation I sensed my mum's emotions, perhaps she was crying but I don't remember that.
  • Having a bar of soap rubbed up and down my tongue aged 2. Punishment for eating soil. Still love the smell :)
  • I was on the beach at Barmouth, in the summer of 1939, just before my third birthday, sitting with my mother. My father was at the waters edge, wearing one of those dreadful woollen bathing suits that stretched from neck to knee. Someone was being taken from the water, and was carried up the beach past us and there was an air of tension that must have affected me, because the memory is still so vivid in my mind.
  • I remember standing on the side of the road, holding Mum's hand, feeling proud of my little blue coat because everyone said it was very smart. Then a 'bus' drew up and we got on, but the windows inside were black and I couldn't see out and I was really scared. Mum told me later that it was when my brother was born and she had to take him daily to the hospital in an ambulance that came to pick her up. I was two.
  • edited February 2012
    I have three vivid memories all from round about the same time.

    But the one that I'm guessing was first is of me sat in our flat and my Dad saying that it would be strange it not being just the three of us anymore (my mum was pregnant with my brother) - I was probably two rapidly approaching three at the time.

    My other vivid memories from round that time were of when we moved in to a house (to accommodate said brother) and when I got a pet rabbit on my third birthday (to try and stop me becoming jealous of the attention going to my soon to be sibling).
  • I was three years old. I was standing in my aunt's living room (we were staying there while waiting to move into a new house). A piece of coal fell out of the fire into the grate. I can remember deciding that, as it was black and not red, it was cold and OK to pick up. So I picked it up and threw it back onto the fire. It was not cold. It was bloody hot. I can remember the feeling of injustice at being told off for doing such a silly thing, when I really had thought about it.
  • [quote=st force]The same thing happened the next year on my birthday again but I don't remember that.

    Does anyone else wish to share?[/quote]
    Obviously NOT your birthday party venue!
    My own earliest memory is very brief.
    My parents brought me to England in December 1945 and I have a vivid image of the arrivals hall. That's it - but I was under two.
  • I'm convinced I remember being in the womb.

    Ever since I can remember, I've been unable to watch underwater programmes where the water is grey and murky and big dark creatures like sea cows are swimming towards the camera. I find the noise of dolphins and whales deeply disturbing, together with the sound of being underwater (that rushing, enclosed burbling sound).

    I was a forceps delivery. I'm convinced that sea cows remind me of the shape of forceps, the murky water of the bloodied water around me, and the high-pitched dolphin noises replicate my own cries of distress in the womb.

    I am happy to swim in clear water, btw, and can happily watch sealife programmes where the water is clear and the fish are small and colourful.
  • I remember standing in my cot in my parents' bedroom in a pair of pyjamas in Aertex-like material, with the little holes in. They had pictures of teddy bears on them. I worked out that could get my fingers into some of the holes and make them bigger. A lot bigger. I ripped all the way down one leg.
    Next memory is being three years old, wearing a green dress, and sitting on my tricycle, which had a picture of a puppy chewing a green tartan slipper on the seat. My big brother pushed me on said tricycle straight into the garage door. (Could be worse - he shot my other brother in the bottom with an airgun dart. Ah, you had to make your own fun in the late 50s!) I can still remember climbing up the back step crying.
  • [quote=bertiebear]My big brother pushed me on said tricycle straight into the garage door. (Could be worse - he shot my other brother in the bottom with an airgun dart. Ah, you had to make your own fun in the late 50s!) I can still remember climbing up the back step crying.[/quote]

    I did worse than that - ! was 10, D was 8, L was 3. D and I pushed L's tricycle down a hill and he hit railings.
    Blood everywhere, hospital, stitches, and L bore the scar on his forehead all his life.
    And bless him - he told the parents it was an accident!
  • Liz, I still have a crooked nose which I have always believed came from that day.
    Weren't you horrid? And wasn't life fun in those days!
  • I may remember being in an oxygen tent. Don't know how old I'd have been. There are other occasions in hospital - I'll just go and find the thread ...

    Oh, and I remember being frightened of The Water Babies. There was something about the pictures ...
  • I don’t remember much about my first day at school, so it probably wasn’t too traumatic, but I do remember my stay in hospital when I was six. It wasn’t the first time I’d been in hospital, but on this occasion I spent the first day in tears being carried around by a nurse. One nurse abandoned me in a bath, and I eventually got out when the water was cold. Another kept urging me to eat an egg sandwich until I burst into tears and said that egg made me sick. And the teacher there slapped me as she thought I’d been cheating.

    from the thread:

    What was your first day at school like?
  • Wow, Anna - that's sparked a whole train of thought for me, you could write a great poem about that.

    I've been told my birth story so often I can't distinguish how much is actual memory. My mum kept it secret - she was on the floor moaning and rocking. My gran got up and said 'whatever's the matter?', Mum: 'I'm having a baby', Gran: 'That's nothing to cry about', Mum: 'I'm having it now'. This is Boxing Day, no telephone, Great Gran sent for, 20 stone woman, runs across allotments without her drawers to deliver me. Mum: 'Take it away, I don't want it.'

    I've had a rejection thing ever since, so why be a writer!
  • One of my earliest memories is lying in my cot, in my room, in the high rise flat we used to live in, and a spider crawled across my face.
  • Sitting on the floor behind my great-grandfather's chair, smell of stone, polish, leather, faint hint of damp (this was very old cottage near Bath), cool in the room but brilliant sunshine outside lighting up the flowers in the border. Grandad watching pictures of men in funny clothes jumping about on grey stuff on the TV - July 1969 and I was about two and a half.
  • Blimey, Red. Did that give you a phobia about our 8-legged friends, or make you blas
  • [quote= Dwight]Blimey, Red. Did that give you a phobia about our 8-legged friends, or make you blas
  • I think the trouble with early memories is that once you remember it, you then create a new memory that reinforces it. Ultimately it's hard, if not impossible, to remember that first memory.
  • I remember living in Carlisle (I was about eighteen months). I told my mother that the houses all had sloping gardens and there was a chain link fence at the end of the road with black and white cows behind it. She said that was all true.
    Also I remember my mother bringing my brother home from the maternity hospital and placing him a bright peach coloured carry cot, the hood on it was rounded. I was two.
  • This has made interesting reading! My earliest memory was when I was about 16 months old, sitting on the back step of our house in Muswell Hill helping a neighbour pod peas. I also remember the cats in that garden - they were the size of panthers to my 16 month old self.
  • [quote=ana s]I've been told my birth story so often [/quote]
    Ana S - to be able to tell you that horrid story, someone who was there must have kept you.
    Someone incredibly insensitive to tell you the details repeatedly, but they still kept you.
    Can't you look at that as a positive outcome?
  • The Memory Palace technique:

    http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/303146/How-you-can-have-a-memory-just-like-the-great-Sherlock-Holmes

    Looks like a cheap flights website turned up when I visited the Express website.
  • I wish I could remember as far back as some of you, but I can't. I remember arriving at school on my first day and feeling nervous holding my mum's hand. We went into the classroom and the children were painting on easels wearing aprons. It looked brilliant.

    I also remember a little girl from school coming back to my house. She was very cute with blonde hair in bunches and everyone adored her, so I hit her over the head with a wooden finger puppet.
  • [quote=Lou Treleaven]I wish I could remember as far back as some of you, but I can't.[/quote]

    Don't worry about it, Lou - it's not a competition as far as I'm concerned. (Or do some think it is?) ;)
  • Hey, I remember the night I was conceived!

    Actually, thank god I don't.
  • [quote=Lou Treleaven]She was very cute with blonde hair in bunches and everyone adored her, so I hit her over the head with a wooden finger puppet.[/quote] Hahahahaha! That made me laugh. Now everyone in the class room is looking at me.

    I remember trying to do a forward roll like Action Man down the stairs at the old house but I fell down instead. I started to cry so mum gave me an extra egg at breakfast. I don't know how old I was at the time. We moved house when I was five or six. I spent that day with that Grandma walking on the wall near the park. Then she drove me to the new house and I was so happy to see Mum I cried...
  • [quote=st force]Now everyone in the class room is looking at me.[/quote]

    Oops! Hope you're on lunch break and not in lessons, st...
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