What is your earliest memory?

[Treetotal]

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

[Seoras]

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.

[Treetotal]

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

[Seoras]

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.

[Ayashi]

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.

[jaybelnz]

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! 

[StanleysChesterton]

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.

[Rena]

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      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.

[ScouseBoy]

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.