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General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: Treetotal on Tuesday 29 September 15 21:50 BST (UK)
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I am writing a book about growing up in the 1950s for my children to appreciate how very different life was in the post war years. I Remember both my Grandma and my parents relating stories of their childhood and years later...in common with others...I wish I had asked more questions. Years of family research have prompted me to commit to paper the good and the not so good memories I have of my growing years and the people, places and events that shaped my life.
My earliest childhood memory is of being on an isolation hospital ward when I was 18 months old and ill with double pneumonia......and having to learn to walk again on my road to recovery. When I described to my mother what I remembered and asked where I was and what it was all about....she was amazed that my memory of that time was so clear.
My daughter bought me a small book called "The Mothers Book" which is full of favourites about who, where, what and when...of special occasions throughout life along with places to put photos which I have almost finished.
I Would love to hear if anyone else has taken any measures to record their experiences and their memories to pass on to their children.
Carol
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Hi Carol, this is an easy one for me. I can't have been very old as I was sat in a push chair. I can clearly remember I was sat to the left of an open hearth fire with other people in a semi circle to my right. A bird landed on my head and got caught in my hair and I screamed the place down. I also remember lot's of laughter from my companions. I found out only a few years ago when relating this to my cousin, that it was probably in my grandmothers house and the bird would have been the budgie she kept that was often left to fly about the room. This is probably not only my earliest memory of family but also of my place of birth as I was born in the very same house.
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H George.....They often say that the most traumatic and the most pleasurable memories are the ones that stay with us throughout our life....I believe this too....did you have a fear of birds after your earl experience?
Thanks for sharing.
Carol
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Hi Carol, no it didn't give any lasting damage. In fact when I was younger I was always bringing injured birds home. I did however as a child hate being laughed at so maybe that stemmed from this.
It is a memory that has always stayed with me though.
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Perhaps oddly, I don't have any memories that I can identify before the age of 4 but I do remember standing in a bathroom with the daughter of a family friend, who was a few months older than me, and we had mentioned our ages in relation to each other and she said "I'm a big 4 and you're a little 4!" Goodness knows why I remember that. I also remember starting school and I have various memories of playing alone on the unloved toys and edging away as far as I could from other children in the classroom. I must have been four or five then. I'm not sure how old I was but one time when I was ill my mother left me watching a cartoon while she went to pick my brother up from school (I suspect I was too young for her to have done that, really!) and I can even remember the cartoon... but I forgot she'd left the house, couldn't find her, got upset and scared and spent the rest of the time hiding behind my bedroom door.
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I can remember a Kindergarten teacher bringing me home because she thought I had flea bites! She had growled at me scratching and told me I couldn't bring fleas to kindergarten!
Can clearly recall her knocking at the back door, and when my Mum opened the door, she pulled up my top and pointed them out, saying, something like "she's got fleas, you need to get rid of them before she comes back! (I can right now picture and hear her)! The old bag!
I thought she said "you need to get rid of "her"! Yikes! Pretty scarey for a little kid!
I was terrified - Anyway, my Mum got really angry -with her - I had hives, and probably from eating the morning tea apples from kindy that were not peeled that day - (I was apparently allergic to Apple skins - I do remember Mum always peeling my apples when I was wee!
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We moved just before I was 3 and I am unaware of having any memories at that address.... the first thing I recall is being taken to nursery school for the first time (and a few times after that), so I must've been nearly 4 in the first instance.
I have quite a few specific memories of that nursery school and an old lady who went past, whose name I knew, who gave me a wrapped sweetie one day through the chainmail fence. Sweeties were forbidden, so I hid it in my pocket. I still remember her last name, but have no idea who she was.
I did ask my mum once (2-3 years ago) who she was and all mum said/could remember was "an old lady that lived round that way).
So, I have quite a handful of memories, aged 4.
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I had the dickens of a job trying to trace my grandmother's German father born in 1854 and it was years before the realisation dawned on me that I'd actually met him twice. The first time was when my brother was born which means I was about 17 months old and I clearly recall my grandmother taking me on a bus journey to the nearby village of Hedon, then a long walk along the road (no pavement) from the terminus to a house behind a house. I now know when he died so I was two and my brother was one year old when our mother took us to see her grandfather. This time we were allowed out into the garden to explore and we were intrigued to find inside a little wooden shed at the bottom of the garden was a long wooden box with two holes in the top. Apparently they were their lavatories "hee hee" great amusement on our part lol.
We moved house on my third birthday so I know I was under 3 years old when I shared my first secret with our mother. We'd been instructed not to get "under her feet" so my brother and I were stood in the kitchen doorway whilst she manoeuvred a pan on the kitchen stove when she accidentally tipped half the contents of our dinner down onto the kitchen floor. Bending down she scooped it back into the pan and said "We won't tell daddy about this" lol. About that time I remember our mother having a conversation with a man at the back door, he'd delivered a chicken and he'd put it in the outhouse. He opened the outhouse door and there was a brown chicken strutting about inside. Great excitement for tots but not a toy. I don't know whether it was later that day or some other day but my next memory regarding the chicken is of my father coming into the kitchen saying ,"I can't do it". After some grown up talk where my mother's voice rose and my father's voice was subdued ;D we all looked into the outhouse and there was the chicken walking about with a very bent neck. Decades later my father was reminiscing about the chicken which was apparently destined for the boiling pot. He'd been told how to wring its neck and he should have been able to do it with ease because he had strength due to his working in heavy engineering but was squeamish and couldn't bring himself to finish the act so had had to ask his friend to do it for him.
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I remember falling off my tricycle just outside our house. Then my mum and an auntie took me to hospital to check if I had concussion. Perhaps I was aged three to four.
I remember we had a clothes drying contraption in the kitchen which you raised and lowered with cord or thin rope on pullies.
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I can remember a Kindergarten teacher bringing me home because she thought I had flea bites! She had growled at me scratching and told me I couldn't bring fleas to kindergarten!
Can clearly recall her knocking at the back door, and when my Mum opened the door, she pulled up my top and pointed them out, saying, something like "she's got fleas, you need to get rid of them before she comes back! (I can right now picture and hear her)! The old bag!
I thought she said "you need to get rid of "her"! Yikes! Pretty scarey for a little kid!
I was terrified - Anyway, my Mum got really angry -with her - I had hives, and probably from eating the morning tea apples from kindy that were not peeled that day - (I was apparently allergic to Apple skins - I do remember Mum always peeling my apples when I was wee!
This made me really laugh ;D ;D ;D
I experienced a similar situation when I was given a note by the nit nurse to take home...it turned out that the note was meant for a girl in my class with the same first name and a very similar surname...my Mother was furious and made the headmistress look through my head to check for any offending head lice...of course the inspection proved that I had no such infestation...my Mother got an apology and an assurance that there wouldn't be a repeat of this mistaken identity.
Some good ones here and some have brought back similar memories for me too.
Thanks for sharing.
Carol
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The earliest 2 memories I can definitely date are from the same day when I was three and a half. In the first I was with my dad in a hospital to collect my mum and new born brother, and was given a large doll (perhaps to limit jealousy issues?). The second, which I am sure was the same day, was at our village church, with the vicar saying some prayers. As we were the only people there, I have always believed this was a churching service.
I have several other memories from around the same time, but they may have been slightly earlier or later, as there is nothing memorable enough to date them.
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I'm not sure if it's the first, but a very early memory is 'helping' my father when he was turning over the soil in the vegetable garden in the spring. I went along behind, covering up the earthworms with soil so they wouldn't dry out and die.
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I can remember my father using a floor polisher and I was small enough to sit on it as he pushed it around the floor of his shop. It was when we were living in Wigton in Cumbria so I must of been maybe two or three. Also, watching Andy Pandy on TV.
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I can't remember riding the floor polisher (ours was a triangular shaped thing) but can remember standing on my Dad's feet dancing around the lounge!
Also remember sitting on his knee and him singing to me, "Daddy's Little Girl"! Usually just before I went to bed, or if I was upset about something"!
The first time I heard Michael Buble singing it, I went berserk and bawled my eyes out!
There are a number of different artists singing it on You Tube! More tears!! :'( :'(
Jeanne
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My earliest memory is of being in my pram and it was very dark and I could see the stars - not sure of my exact age but must have been under 2 years old.
Another memory was when I was 3 years old and I went with mum and dad for a holiday to Port Glasgow. We were staying with a great aunt and uncle and when I stood on a chair at the kitchen sink I could see the ships on the river Clyde. This is most memorable because I was given a tube of banana flavoured toothpaste which I ate instead of using to clean my teeth ;D
Can't remember if I was sick :-\
Dorrie
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Opening my eyes for the first time, seeing a large pink hill with a cairn on top, and wondering how the hell am I going to climb that when I cannot even walk yet. ::) ::) ::) ::) ::)
Anonymous.
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Four images of the bungalow that my parents rented in Stanmore. We moved out when I was 3 or 4. Curiously I remember less about my infants school and not much more about the juniors.
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I can't match most here. My first memory was at 5 years old. Latter half of June 1948. My father took me to the Canadian Red Cross Memorial Hospital at Taplow, Bucks, to collect my mother and new brother. I can see it now in full technicolour. Lovely summers day, Green Vauxhall 14, green leather upholstery. Me sitting in the middle of the back seat, head in hands, my mother in front passenger seat holding the baby, balling his head off, he did a lot of that.
I suppose I resented his intrusion. Never got on with him, haven't spoken with him for 12 years.
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Thanks for sharing your memories....I have really enjoyed reading them....its interesting to see that the age of three or four is proving to be significant for many here.
I am known for having a good memory and family often ask me about events that they are unsure about. My sister didn't believe that she used to bite her nails for a time when she was younger..and wondered how I could remember something she did years ago....when she had no memory of it.....my Mum confirmed this, much to my sister's disgust as it is a habit can't bear.
Carol
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Sometimes it makes you wonder why pre-school teachers do the job they do if they clearly dislike children! That story reminded me of my own, again aged 4, of being in the "4+ unit" as they called it and one of the teachers got married. Naturally I kept calling her by the name I knew her as, her maiden name, and one time I addressed her when I was standing next to my mother and this woman came over, towered over me and got aggressive that I was calling her the wrong name. Mum was not happy.
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I remember we had a clothes drying contraption in the kitchen which you raised and lowered with cord or thin rope on pullies.
ScouseBoy, I have a rellie who still uses one. It's in her kitchen above the fire and I would think has been there since the house was built in the 1930's.
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Hi George...My Daughter lives in a large Victorian property and has one in her utility room:
http://www.bagsandracks.co.uk/cast-iron-clothes-airers/traditional-classic-pulley-maid-airer.html?gclid=CKam1cO-o8gCFaZ02wodoP0Buw
Carol
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I'm not sure how old I was but I remember being in a pram or pushchair at what my mother called the "clinic". Seeing bottles of orange juice on shelves and being given cod liver oil on a spoon.
Malcolm
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Yeah...me too Malcolm...thanks for sharing ;D
Carol
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SCOUSEBOY - we had one of those things too, we called it the airer. As it hung above an open fireplace, it was just the job for drying damp stuff.
I think my first memory was of being wrapped up in an armchair under the above airer. Was not yet at toddler stage. I could see my mother in the kitchen part of the room, making the dinner and I was listening to MRS DALES DIARY. I don't remember the plot, but the harp music was what I liked.
also remember being taken out to the local shops in a big carriage pram. We were not really 'posh', but I was an unexpected baby and my mother got lots of 2nd hand stuff, including this pram, from the family of a very well-off baby who had grown out of them.
I also remember being bathed in a small tin bath in front of the fire - airer still above. Houses had freezing bathrooms in those days, so I was bathed where it was warm, thank goodness.
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It is said that our earliest memories usually co-incide with learning to talk, some children learn to talk earlier so some children will have 'earlier' memories.
I sometimes think some of the 'memories' I have are from experiences that my parents repeated over and over, so not true memories.
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lots of things from a 70's childhood, e.g. rolling brown outs but unsure of dates.
However, strongest is aged just under 7, saying goodbye to my baby sister laid out in a little white coffin in the undertakers chapel of rest.
Spark
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Aw....that is so sad :'(
Carol
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Carol,
I too am doing the same as you. Have completed my Childhood memories of growing up in Arundel. Now have to get it published. It's only for my children.
I have so many memories can't pinpoint the earliest. Several spring to mind all pre-school. I suppose the one I am famous for is grassing the door. Dad kept this alive until the day he died. Briefly front door was being painted a beautiful gloss green, dad was mowing lawn round the back.painter had finished came round to tell dad. I took a handful of grass clippings run round front a d threw them at door. Ran back to dad pleased as punch and said "I've grassed the door daddy!" Painter was not amused, dad saw funny side. He kept that story alive with a twinkle in his eye. I can still see it today I was probably about 4.
Happy days :)
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That made me laugh Jane...shame no one took a photo of it....Glad you are committing your memories to paper too. Don't we wish our elderly rellies had done the same!
Carol
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I was two years,we visited my Aunt and Uncle at a cottage on a farm. There was a drip tray under a beer barrel that my older brother about 4 years fed me the drips, I was so drunk I nearly fell out of a bedroom window!!
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;D ;D ;D ;D I'm surprised you can remember ;D ;D ;D
Carol
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An air raid in Boston late May 1941! I was around 4 months old!
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Really....a memory from four months old.....that is really young :o
Carol
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Really....a memory from four months old.....that is really young :o
Carol
Amazing isn't it?
My oldest son remembers one incident which happened when he was 6 months old, which beats my earliest memory.
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Really....a memory from four months old.....that is really young :o
Carol
Amazing isn't it?
My oldest son remembers one incident which happened when he was 6 months old, which beats my earliest memory.
I believe it was due to the traumatic effect of the bangs and shakings which ingrained it in my brain.
I remember nothing else until I was around 2 when in the back garden I asked Dad what peacetime was? His reaction, from a 43 year old Train driver, Homeguard and WW1 underage vet was to burst into tears. Not too surprising really. What effect are current wars having on small children?
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I have the vaguest memories of being under my Mum and Dad's bed when I was about 18 months old and my uncle Emrys coming to get me out. I was told much later that Mum had come upstairs to find the cot empty and I must have somehow got over the side and crawled under the bed. I also remember very vividly sitting on my Grandma's knee when I was 4, having been sick while my parents were out at a dance. She cuddled me in my blue dressing gown with a pink cord, by a warm coal fire, until they came home. Also there was a food office next door and we collected the lovely government issue of orange juice - so tasty in a little bottle - some years after the end of the war.
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Ooh, I loved that orange juice! Never found anything to match it since. Rose hip syrup was pretty good, too, but top of my list was.....dried bananas - sweet and chewy.
I was three and sitting in our front room when my mother pointed out a little girl walking past with her mother. "That's a new little girl who's just come to live here. She's the same age as you and I think you could be friends", she said. That little girl and I have been friends ever since that first meeting more than 70 years ago.
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My earliest memory was of being at the local clinic, having the regular weighing that they do to babies. This one occasion stands out as I was being weighed in one of those oval-shaped metal bowls that greengrocers use to weigh spuds ;D. It struck so cold I can remember screaming the place down and the nurse saying something about forgetting to put the paper lining in.
I don't know my exact age, but it could only have been a few months to have fitted in that bowl.
Amazingly, last year my Dad was going through a lot of old papers my late Mum had kept and amongst them was my Baby Weight Card, listing all my visits (and each weight) up to the age of about a year. Weird to link the two.
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I have the vaguest memories of being under my Mum and Dad's bed when I was about 18 months old and my uncle Emrys coming to get me out. I was told much later that Mum had come upstairs to find the cot empty and I must have somehow got over the side and crawled under the bed. I also remember very vividly sitting on my Grandma's knee when I was 4, having been sick while my parents were out at a dance. She cuddled me in my blue dressing gown with a pink cord, by a warm coal fire, until they came home. Also there was a food office next door and we collected the lovely government issue of orange juice - so tasty in a little bottle - some years after the end of the war.
You forgot the cod liver oil ;D
Carol
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Thanks for reminding me about the codliver oil and the rosehip syrup.
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I remember the orange juice, but not the cod liver oil. Does anyone remember gripe water (I think that was what it was called.)
As for the rose hip syrup, I not only remember it, the small country primary I attended collected rose hips every autumn term - I can still remember going along the lanes and picking them from the hedges , and all the scratches!! :o
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I remember Dinnefords Milk of Magnesia - was that the same as gripe water?
Yep, cod liver oil, and WORM SYRUP, ugh! Then later as a teenage girl, Dr William's Pink Pills (for pale and Peaky People! And Lanes Emulsion for my brothers!
Loved it when the Rawleigh's Man came around with his magical cases! Mum bought orange vitamin pills I think, essences and spices, and the wonderful Rawleighs camphor ointment. I remember some children at school wearing camphor bags around their neck in winter!
And the button up bodice under your clothes! ;D
And in spite of all that - if I had a sore throat - a knob of butter rolled in sugar!
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I remember a younger cousin having GripeWater
Jeanne I remember the "liberty bodice" whatever happened to them. Also what we're they for, bit corset like and good for flattening budding breasts.
And who can forget navy blue knickers. Even came with a pocket in them ??? Or nylon frilly knickers, both not good material to wear.
Jane
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Gripe Water - I remember there being a bit of a scandal as the original formula contained alcohol and some mothers took rather large helpings for themselves! ;D
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Anyone else have Minadex which I think was a children's tonic...we always had Indian Brandy for tummy ache??
Also cod-liver oil and malt that was kind of thick and syrupy.
Carol
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Yes Minadex was a favourite - a greeny colour - lovely!
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Yeah...that's the one...you are the first person I know who remembers it....my sister doesn't recall having it.
Carol
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Yep - cod liver oil - UGH! But I loved my big spoonful of malt every morning! 😄
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I was always jealous of my cousin whose mother gave him Fennings Cooling Powder when he was poorly. I probably just fancied the way it was wrapped in the paper.
I think one of the worst things to take than the teaspoon of cod liver oil, was when our mother came home from the Co-operative shop with a replacement for the oil. It was a large bar of cod liver oil chocolate, which clung to your tongue for ages despite swilling your mouth out with water.
"Virol" was the name of the malt we used to love. It seemed to vanish from the shops when our children were tots but my husband spotted it in a chemist one day and as it had been one of his favourite treats as a child he couldn't wait to get home to share the joy with our (then) young teenagers. Three spoons dipped into the jar, then there was one voice ooh-ing and ah-ing at the beautiful taste but from two other mouths were argh wails of disgust and accusations that somebody who loved them could poison them. :D
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I also remember chocolate that was a laxative - but can't remember the name of it - not that I would want it - it was totally gross!! 🙈👎
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The earliest 2 memories I can definitely date are from the same day when I was three and a half. In the first I was with my dad in a hospital to collect my mum and new born brother, and was given a large doll (perhaps to limit jealousy issues?).
Very similar for me. Must be the trauma of having a little brother. :)
I remember sitting on a park bench with my grandfather on a small park area outside the hospital waiting for my father to bring out my mother and new-born brother.
Then - presumably a few months later - I remember sitting on the edge of the pram, between the handles looking up at my mother pushing the pram, while my brother was lain inside the pram.
My brother is 2½ years younger than me, so I must have been under three.
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Frankly I had never heard of Minadex until now. What was it for and what have I missed?