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my earliest memory

Di.Poppitt

GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN
I emember the day I should have started school at Canterbury Road Infants, but I woke with a rash. The doctor came out, he confirmed that I had measles and I ended the day singing to the men who were climbing up a ladder past the bedroom window doing a spot of roofing. Not at all ill, but never the less banished to bed for a week. :D

Another memory is the day mom decided she couldn't live with my father any longer, and when I fell over a suitcase my father cried. I was seven, and we did go back home after the war.

But the earliest memory is lying in mom's bed, tucked into her arm. It was raining, so the sirens would be silent, and as we lay there we heard rain on the window and the clickety click of heels against the pavement below, and I remember so clearly mom saying how lovely it was to be warm and safe. :D
 
Re: Earliest Memory

my earliest memory is what must have been a roadside picnic with my mom and dad...as we were on our own (and the memory is very vague) I must have been very young, and the only child so far...my younger brother was born in Feb. '62, so it must have been before that...
I doubt if it was winter, so could have been in '61 sometime...when I would have been 2.
The strongest memory I have of it is that on my dad's radio (on the grass?) it was playing 'The Music Goes Round And Round').
 
Re: Earliest Memory

:angel: Mine are of : Being tipped out of my sisters dolls pram, I can remember and picture the back yard as clear as day and Mom always said that was in Allesley St and I was not quite two when that happened. We had moved from Allesley St not long after to wheeley's Rd, while there I mixed all my brother's puzzles up in to one big pile, tried to have a shave with Dad's razor, pulled one of those green paper mash type masks out of the fire and putting it on singeing my hair and finally throwing one of Mom's best pink glass dishes from one of those fruit sets, on the floor from my High Chair because I wanted more pudding. Then to Dymoke St, polishing all the shoes with the wrong colour polish, while Mom had popped up the road for some sugar or something in the snow. All this happened before I was four and a half years of age, no wonder my Mom needed medication to help her through the day, I remember being a real ' BRATCHILD'!

Chris :angel:
 
Re: Earliest Memory

My earliest memory is playing cars on the Pheasey Estate during the war. My pals and I had constructed carved out roads on a hard sand pile and we were driving our little cars on them. There were crossings and such. Neccessity being the mother of invention, our cars were the larger stones that we found lying around.

Also, during the war there was an American soldier camp there and we kids used to wait by the camp fence and the American soldiers gave us chewing gum through the wire. The gum was in stick form which was the first time we had ever seen this.

Then we moved away.

Regards.
 
Re: Earliest Memory

I think my clearest earliest memory is of mum having to drag me to St Francis School in Brougham Street on my first day. I had decided I definitely didn't want to go. When we got there I was placed in front of a huge teacher in a grey coat and hat with a feather in it, who smiled very kindly and patiently at me and told my mum to leave me. Didn't stop me running from the class and back home afterwards though!

I also remember playing in a place called 'B-Block' or something that sounded like that; my sister and I pushing our youngest sister down Farm Street in her pushchair and hitting a slab. Out went our youngest sister like a rocket and she went crying home to mum while we hid in B-Block.

:angel:

ChrisB
 
Re: Earliest Memory

Well i remember being in my pram only about 6/7 months old looking up at an ornate light shade and gurgling,bet you cant beat that. :-\
 
Re: Earliest Memory

Yeah it will take a lot to beat that Angie! ;)

ChrisB
 
Re: Earliest Memory

Angie, I've got a memory. I think of sitting in my pram, eating bread. But my mom always told a story that she took me shoping in Witton Road calling in to the bakers for a loaf. Then she left me out side a shop with the bread on the pram's apron, and when she came out there was a crowd of women round the pram, watching me as I scooped the middle out of the loaf and ate it. She was miffed when opne of them said ' poor little b..... she must be hungry.' 8) Nah I loved bread, and still do.

Anyroad up, I often wonder if my memory is playing tricks.
 
Re: Earliest Memory

Wow - what memories you have ladies! Here is one of my memories (not my earliest but nonetheless powerful!)

"The louder I screamed the faster Mum walked, dragging me wailing like a banshee behind her. Down the mile long stretch of suburbia tucked in the shadow of Mt Wellington, past the small weatherboard houses, Mum charged on regardless of the open, smelly gutter lining the dirt path.
By the time we reached Main Road my eyes were so swollen I couldn’t see my feet and my nose was running miserably. Undeterred, Mum dragged me over the pedestrian crossing to a small strip of shops. My sobbing died instantly as we entered a small shop with an elaborate sign emblazoned on its front window “SALON ANDREâ€Â. My knees shook uncontrollably and my breath came in painful gasps as a small flamboyant man dressed in what looked to me to be an apron descended upon Mum, rubbing his hands together and leering wickedly at me. “Ah, Madame, welcomeâ€Â, he gushed. “I shall attend to the leetle one myself.†With that I was scooped up on a high chair and, with my long fine black hair gathered in a firm Flemish grasp, the odious little man cut off a huge hank with an enormous pair of scissors. It was over in a flash. The floor at my feet was covered with fine black hair and the hair left on my head barely reached my nape. I stared dumbly into the mirror, snivelling miserably with shock. Mum was as white as a sheet. She lifted me off the chair, paid Monsieur Andre and, head held high, dragged me outside. 'Wellâ€Â, she hissed, 'I did warn you. If you kept screaming every time I brushed your hair this is what would happen.' We walked silently home and I never quite forgave her."

I would give anything to have her back though :)
 
Re: Earliest Memory

:angel: My son Dean can remember just little snippets of things from when he was a baby in England, we moved to New Zealand just before he was 2yrs. He would often think he'd had dreams and start telling me about them, to my surprise I'd have to say , but that really did happen when we were in England. For example he was able to tell me the colour of my sisters kitchen and where things were in the kitchen, he only visited that house a few times as we lived in London and she lived in Long Acre Nechells. Another time, that one day he was left with an old lady and he cried all the time while I was gone, that was the day of my Dads funeral , he was 11mths then and had been left with my Brother-in-Law's mother.

Chris :angel:
 
Re: Earliest Memory

My earliest memory is of being pushed down to Smethwick gas works in my pram and having to walk back cos the pram was full of coke. :'(
 
Re: Earliest Memory

:angel: That's made him lost for words mazbeth, I wonder if he was still on 'The Pot' at the time.:2funny:

Chris :angel:
 
Re: Earliest Memory

I dunno, cocaine and pot with one so young. :D :D
 
Re: Earliest Memory

The age of you two, I'm surprised you can remember the telegram you got from the queen.
sobbing.gif
Now can we please get back on topic?
Thank you!
angry2.gif

(Who said power corrupts? ^-^ )
 
Re: Earliest Memory

My earliest memory is being woken by Mom to get my sister and myself down a neighbours cellar I was about 4 :)
 
Re: Earliest Memory

:angel: Ossie who was off topic then ??? I remember my 'Potty' it was a dusky pink enamel one and my brother's was yellow enamel with a green rim! Mom and Dad had a yellow crock chamber pot under their bed and when we were a little older we had a white enamel bucket with a lid, on the landing in the corner of the first flight of stairs. (Bedroom floor before going up another flight to the Attics).
 
My earliest memory, was being born............I was SO shocked, I didn't speak for eighteen months. :idiot2:
 
my earliest memory was my mother trying to teach me to talk,
then spent the rest of my life telling me to shut up

jake
 
Dragged across the back yard down the cellar of a neighbours house :)
 
But we got through it Angie a before and a War Babbie :coolsmiley:
 
Mine was being dragged around the meat and fish market :( only just able to walk,it facinated me all those people eating wiggly thingies on small plates :buck2:

If yer wondering what wiggly things are [winkles,prawns etc]
 
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