What is your earliest memory?

[littleme61_6]

What is your earliest memory. 

I can remember sitting on a potty in a long passage, looking up to some flickering gas lamp lights on the wall at my Grandma's home. Also my first day at school I was crying my eyes out, but as soon as a teacher opened a huge cupboard full of toys I ran there, and all was okay with me then. 

[right-then-petal]

coughing blood

[fallen-archie]

Sitting in my pushchair with my mother taking me out to get an injection at the doctors

[astrologica]

I was about four years old, and I had a favourite red velvet dress. My mother gave the dress, which was a bit tatty, to the rag and bone man and he gave her a balloon for me. I didn't want a balloon.....I wanted my dress back and I had an almighty tantrum. I kept up the tantrum until my mam went running down the road after the van to ask for my dress back. I can still remember the feeling of happiness when she gave me back my dress. I have a lovely photo of me wearing that dress, and if I close my eyes I can still feel that tatty old velvet!

[023mjc]

I have a very vague memory of my granny appearing in my range of vision then coming towards me and looming over me with a big bright smile on her face.  I don't know, but have the feeling I was lying in my cot or pram.

Nothing else till I was about 3 but quite a few from age 3 and 4.

[Anonymous]

I have no memories until kindergarten.

The worst one in that time was when the teacher took my toy gun away from me and put it in a cupboard. When I asked for it back after the Easter holidays it was gone. It was a really nice one, not your run of the mill.  How was I going to play Rowdy Yates now.

[astrologica]

Wow, Harry! A gunslinger from Kindergarten......... I am impressed!😄

[cee-dee]

My ealiest memory may be a false memory.

I was in my pram (!!!!!) and was trying to catch a bee buzzing around inside the canopy. I remember the frills around the canopy (which was up).

However, the incident was mentioned several times and a photo exists of me in the pram so, like I said, it may well be a false memory.

A real memory is of heading to school on my first day. I was being carried on a seat on the back of my mothers bike (school was a mile away in the next village) and I remember meeting a woman heading back after taking her kids and she'd said that mother should hurry up..... I remember asking "Has the whistle gone?"

I dunno why I asked that. The head teacher didn't have a whistle, she had a little bell she rang to call kids from the school yard in to school.

[Anonymous]

I was a bit of a tomboy and always played cowboys and indians with the boys in the neighbourhood. I always wanted to be Rowdy Yates from Rawhide. So I have been a life long fan of Clint Eastwood.

[littleme61_6]

I can remember when I was about 5 years old. It was Christmas day, everyone was sat at the table for Christmas dinner. 

My plate was put in front of me, mmm, so lovely and delicious it looked. As I went to put the knife and fork to the plate the drop-leaf of the table gave way and my meal fell onto my lap then as I jumped in shock it went onto the floor. The look on my face must have been a picture, that's for sure. 

Somehow like magic within no time at all more was provided for me. I gather some potatoes, veg etc were spare still in the pans, and a portion of chicken was found too.

So many laughs over the years had come in memory of that day. 

Of course the drop-down part hadn't been secured enough, but from then on it was double-checked. 

[evoman3957]

3 am...........I remebered to get up to go to the loo.

[jd.linklater]

The smell of Jeyes Fluid everywhere.

Having to boil every drop of water you used.

Having your head shaved being the quickest and cheapest method of getting rid of headlice.

Dodging rats when you went to the toilet at night.

Waking up in the morning touching toes with a kid you didn't know too well.

Scraping the bottom of the barrel.........literally.

All a consequence of having to spend the best part of two years of my early life in this place.

http://website.lineone.net/~covkid/hostels/Midland%20&%20Central/Coventry/Baginton%20Fields%20Hostel...

Excuse the link, it's the only pic I could find.

[right-then-petal]

http://website.lineone.net/~covkid/hostels/Midland%20&%20Central/Coventry/Baginton%20Fields%20Index%...

here you are JD just click the pics or google

babinton fields hostel   /   Both images and view page

[jd.linklater]

Cheers Petal

[vamo48]

I can actually remember teething.  Dad was carrying me round the room  on his shoulder, trying to comfort me, and stopped to show me my face in the mirror.  I stopped crying for a moment, and Mum gave me some powder from a packet.

Another memory from when I was a baby was of being pushed along the road in my pram and dropping a doll over the side.  Mum didn't notice and wondered why I had suddenly started crying, and I was wondering why she couldn't understand what I was telling her.  By the time she realised and turned back, the doll had gone.

One more early memory - as a toddler I found a packet of Mum's cigarettes and stuck one up my nose, sure that that was what you did.  She found me and fell about laughing - gave up smoking shortly afterwards!

[theelench]

I can place my first memory very precisely.  April 11th 1955, I was two,  I remember running down the hall as my father was opening the front door.  I was completely stunned to see a black lady on the step, the first non-white person I had ever seen.  We were living in Brixton at the time and the lady was the mid-wife, come to help with the birth of my sister.

Back in those days it was usual for the first child to be born in hospital, after that if there were no complications mothers had their children at home.

[al**bear]

Being handed over to my Aunt, on the platform of Govan Cross subway station, My parents were going to England for a week (learned this later).

I stunned everyone at aged 15, when at a family party in my Aunts house, when I related this, as I was only just over 2, when it happened.

I can also remember being put under, when I had my Tonsils and adenoids out  - the horrible mask being put on my face and the horrible rubber sheet you were made to lie on - not sure what age I was then

[theelench]

I have a similar memory, the horrible stink of rubber.  I can't remember when it happened to me either.  I do know I was quite young and the dentist removed a few teeth to get the others to line up properly.

Nearly sixty years later and I still recall how horrible it was quite vividly.

[littleme61_6]

So many lovely memories from everyone, amazing what comes back to mind when thinking back. 

I too can remember when I first saw my first non-white person. I was about 4, my Mum had taken me on the bus to go to town. We were on holiday at the time in Southampton to be with my Grandma. On the way I saw the man sat facing me, and I said ''That man has not had a wash mummy''. Seems on hearing this, the man so kindly just smiled at my Mum, and said ''Not to worry''. Poor mum was so embarrassed and apologised, she told me years later she got us both off at the next stop. 

Quite a walk it was then into the town from there. 

[jd.linklater]

When we lived in the hostel I mentioned earlier, I remember the first time I saw a Hasidic Jew, like the ones you see nodding in prayer at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. In his long black coat, funny shaped black hat and kinky hairdo, I found him really scary. Thought he was a wizard or something.