General Chat

Linda
I find it interesting that you can recall events from such an early age. I too have this ability, and for a long time thought everybody did, but apparently not so. My earliest recollections are of wartime events.

During the time of frequent air raids, my paternal Grandfather apparently insisted that my mother and I went to sleep at his house. I remember we slept on a matress on the dining room floor, along with my Grandmother, and an aunt who was single at the time. When the siren went we would all scramble out through the french windows, and down into the Anderson shelter, that was dark, damp, and stank of candle grease and oil lamps. I remember clearly the sound of the air raid sirens, bombs dropping around us, and the boom of the anti-aircraft guns in the nearby park.

My Grandfather never joined us, he slept in his own bed throughout the war, declaring that it had nothing to do with him.

My mother, Grandmother, and aunt, would sing on the tops of their voices, trying to drown out the terrible noise above ground - I found that more frightening than anything else - and I remember my mother holding me so tight to her that I could hardly breathe.

These memories were from the age of around two and a half, and I can remember lots of other things from that age onwards.
My mother was often amazed at just what I could remember about events that she had never spoken of to me.

I find peoples earliest memories very interesting.

Tec

It is odd because I don't remember much else from early on. I can remember a few things from when I was about four, my best friend was the little boy at the end of the terrace and I remember walking across the lane to go to play etc. My first day at school is very clear because Peter the little boy was screaming and clinging onto the door frame at the entrance to the school hall because he didn't want to go in. I remember standing in a line in the hall with my mum and she had to confirm my date of birth etc. Then she was told to take me in a classroom and I had to sit at a wooden desk and then she left.

It is curious, that our earliest memories are not "joined up" as it were. We seem to remember snippets of events, some significent, others totally insignificent. I liken it to looking through an old scrapbook of events. I remember being taken by my Grandfather to someones house. This involved a very long walk through the streets, to see someone known as "Uncle Jack" who had made me a wheelbarrow, painted red, green, and blue. I wheeled it all the way back home. I was three years old. Many years later I was to discover that Uncle Jack was my Grandfathers brother, a coal merchant. I was never to see him again.

It is also curious, that after all these years, and all the water that has passed under the bridge, flashbacks of those earliest events still pass through my mind.

Tec

Yet I have no recollection of things I should do. I lived in the village I was born in until I was almost nine. My sister who is two years younger talks to me about the friends we used to play with, but I don't remember them at all. As you say, I can remember single events. I can remember one morning screaming for my father because a mouse was crawling up the bedroom curtains, he came in and hit it with his slipper.
I remember the day we got our first TV, I remember the first time I saw my brother after he was born. he was just a shock of ginger hair on a white pillow. My dad had moved a bed down into the living room because their was a fire in there and it was easier for mum to look after him. I must have been about eight then, he was a "surprise" for them

Morning,

Memories eh? Where would we be without them... I remember quite a bit of my early childhood, but sometimes there are the odd gaps that I can't quite fill in as to what happened next. I definitely remember my first day of school - and the bossy kids wouldn't let the new ones play in the sandpit. I remember leaving home at 4 but don't know why, I only got up the drive and to the next door - my little suitcase was full of books and was too heavy for me to carry any further. The man down the road had a letter box that was shaped like a little house - and whilst I was not one to play with dolls - I liked the little house - so would take my little wee doll down there to play in it. He was always growling at me - and his name was very apt - he was Mr Chase. The people up the road had a big concrete wall and they were quite tubby and I named them the Humpty Dumptys.
So as you can see I haven't changed a lot over the years - always up to my ears in trouble.

Grandparents - only one was alive when I was born - he died when I was sixteen. He was a very selfish person - but I have the odd fond memory of him - he lived with us - slept in the room next to mine and every night when he was getting ready for bed he would whistle either Onward Christian Soldiers or Old Soldiers Never Die - never anything else.

Persey xx

Good morning Perse. the letter box comment had me confused for a while. I assume that you have the free standing mail boxes on poles outside the house, like the American ones.
Here we only have slots in the actual house door, so the mail drops inside the house

Yep that's correct Linda - they are at front on the boundary (just before the berm) (^_^).

A lot of the old villas including the first two that I lived in had a slot in the front door but they were no longer in use when I came along. I have no idea when they stopped using that method and went to letterboxes on poles.

Perse

Good Morning Perse,
Couldn't you have taught your Grandfather something else to whistle? I am not familiar with "Old Soldiers Never Die" Could you whistle it for me please - I'm listening.

Linda, I laughed at your brother being a shock of ginger on a white pillow.
When the brother next down from me was born he also had a shock of ginger hair. There is no ginger hair on either side of our family. My mothers mother ( The Ethel Evans who has recently traumatised you)
was horrified, and accused my poor mother of all sorts of infidelities.
To the day she died she would have absolutely nothing to do with him.
I have to say that my brother turned out to be very much his fathers son.

Tec

Tut, if Ethel knew anything about genetics, she would have known that it needs two recessive genes,so can skip several generations. My father actually did have ginger hair. My sister and brother both eneded up ginger, but I am blonde as was my mum. She must have been carrying the ginger gene, but she can't remember anyone in her family with ginger hair

Good evening Linda and Tec

Good morning Persey

I too have very early memories, but my earliest would be from when I was about two or three. I went down with diptheria and remember my parents leaving me at Monsall Hospital in Manchester, which was then an Isolation Hospital. I remember screaming blue murder as they were walking away down a corridor!

I also remember having to go to Speach Therapy from about the age of four as I was born tongue tied. I'm also assuming that is tied in (no pun intended) with some visits I made to the Manchester University Medical School. Funnily enough although I remember the visits, I could not tell you what happened on those visits except that at the end I was always given a model dinky car.

And my GP wonders why I have white coat hypertension!!

Allan

Ooh Allan, I have just remembered being rushed into hospital in an ambulance. I was frightened outside the house because it was dark and I thought that the ambulance men were going to tip me off the stretcher. I have no idea why I was in hospital, but I must have been less than nine.
I can also remember being in hospital to have my tonsils taken out when I was about seven. I remember that we were all gathered round the tv and one by one the nurse came and took everyone away and without explaining what was going on she gave me an enema. What strange memories you have uncovered!

I also remember that the whole family used to make a long trip to a chest clinic every year for a chest xray. That was because my dad had TB as a prisoner of war. I used to have one of those skin tests every year to see if you needed the BCG vaccination,but my little circle of pricks came up red and itchy, so I must have been exposed to TB and built up an immunity

Linda

An ENEMA to have your Tonsils out...probably the nurse didnt know your a**e from your elbow. I hope that the doctor did. PMSL

I also remember having mine out and the guaze mask being placed over my nose,

Allan

Good Morning Allan,
Yes - I think you are entitled to have White Coat Hypertension.
I also remember having my tonsils out in London hospital where the wards were underground, no windows. These must have been war time wards as this was 1946. The walls were white tiles from floor to ceiling.
I'm sure it was the mortuary.
I can remember feeling that my throat had been cut, and they gave me ice cream for dinner.

Tec

I can remember having the ice cream as well Tec.
It must have been awful without our parents. I would never have dreamt of leaving one of mine in hospital alone, but I suppose times are different now

Hello everyone - I'm a bit late this morning.

Reading your memories has bought back a few for me too. I remember standing at the front door with my grandfather hanging onto and hiding behnd his very baggy trousers. He was talking to a man who gave me a coin to put in my money box. I also remember him holding me up to the window and pointing to the "puffa train" in the distance. I have been back to that house and I remember the scene from the front garden so well. We lived with my paternal grandad until I was 3 and we came to Australia. I remember feeling so loved by my grandad. I also remember climbing up on a piano stool in my maternal gran's house and playing with the piano. I can remember being told not to touch the music sheets. I also remember a big brown teapot sitting on the mantelpiece. I remember here in Australia having my tonsils out and how terrified I was when they "put me out".

Sue xx

I have a memory of dipping a cup in the water and of a nurse asking me where I was getting the water from. I was 3 and the story is that I was able to walk around the ward after an ear operation. Other patients were giving me their cups, asking for more water. Guess where I was getting it from?....the nurses' toilet bowl!!!

On my first day at school, my twin aunts (11) had special permission to be in the infants' playground to be with me and they played ring-a-rosie with me and a few other 'newbies'. When it came time to skip around in a circle holding hands, they were a bit rough and I remember flying as my feet left the ground, and landed on my knees - on gravel! My first morning at school was spent with my leg up on a chair, watching all the others at assembly. I still have the scar to this day.

Good evening Tec,

Good morning Berona and Sue

Berona, If I'm ever ill I must remember not to ask you to get me any water!

Allan

My great aunt had toilet water - think it was lily of the valley perfume or something like that and I really believed she had got it from the loo.

Have been off the air - my printer had problems - so had to reboot etc.

You talking about not touch the sheet music Sue reminded me of my eldest when 2yrs old going through a golden book identifying objects and we got to the ruler and she called it "a leave it alone" - we could not fathom that one out until we realised my mother always had knitting on the go and the tape measure would be on the table beside her armchair and every time my daughter would got to touch it she was told to leave it alone.

I didn't know they gave you an enema to have your tonsils out. I didn't even have one when I had my appendix out at 9. But the Matron came and talked to me before the operation and I asked how I would be put to sleep and she told me they could either give me chloroform or an injection - being a kid I opted for chloroform - it was a ghastly experience and I remember waking up during the operation ever so slightly and them holding me down. They told me later that I had tried to get up off the operating table. It was weird - everyone looked all twisted and distorted.

Persey

Good Morning Sue, and Berona,

Between us we do seem to have some strange, nostalgic, and funny memories. I do remember when I was about 10/11 yrs old, one summer holidays a gang of us decided to collect up all the cats in the neighbourhood and put them in my fathers bike shed. We collected about 15-17 cats during the day.
The noise was incredible - my father arrived from work, opened the shed to put his bike away, and was nearly knocked over by a cascade of yowling cats.
He was very cross at first, but saw the funny side of it afterwards. The poor moggies all found their way home

Tec

Persey

I had my appendix out when I was 18 and I came round from the anesthetic far more quickly than any body realised, but not, fortunately during the op.

It was about 2.00am and I woke up as I wes being wheeled for the theatre to the ward.

Two nurses were discussing how to get me into the ward bed from the trolley, I groggily said that I could walk and started to get myself off the trolley. The nurses nearly had a fit.

A day or so later when I was allowed to get up I could see why. I thought that they must have left all their instruments inside me the pain was so bad. And I could only walk, or shuffle, very slowly!

Allan