Remember

[gray_marian]

What is the first thing you remember?

[Jacyn Wade]

I'll start then. The first thing I remember is being lost in a forest and very scared. I was 3 years old.

[Peter F Chard]

My earliest memory at about three and a half years of age was my Dad, a fisherman, getting his '' Calling Up Papers " -- he eventually found himself stationed at Ipswich and then Lowestoft on minesweepers. Regards Peter in NZ.

[j.sabourn]

Must also have been about 4 or thereabouts, climbing through the railings surrounding this park with a little blonde girl who got her head stuck and started to scream, had heard how there was a body of a german airman in the park who had bailed out and his chute hadnt opened and was supposed to have his knees through his chest. Couldnt find so went home, forgot all about the little girl, who someone else got her free. I later got a good hiding for leaving her there JS PS Just remembered her name Angela. JS

[Keith Moody]

being carried on my sisters boyfriends shoulder down to the caves, out of harms way as the shells and bombs dropped on Dover, there were burning buildings and lots of noise everywhere, we spent many nights in the caves, they were set up with bunk beds along one side. you were assigned which bunk was yours and kept it until no longer required.
keith moody
R635978

[Doc Vernon]

A bit older(7) but the memory is still vivid,as me and my late Brother Greg were playing Cowboys and Indians in the back of the old Farm House Yard ,I crept up on him with my home made Bow and Arrow (which were steel tipped made with flattened Nails) with the Bow at full stretch and as he Greg didn't want to hold his hands up I let fly!
Oh my gosh! Straight in the abdomen went this Arrow,and embedded itself really deep.
You can imagine the horror on both our faces!
The outcome was a bleedin good walloping from the old Man,with his thick Amy Belt
I had bruised on the rear end for days!
The things Kids did! And I suppose still do!
Cheers

Will have to think on the very first thing though!???

Ah! Yes now this comes to mind,i was then about 4 !
Roodepoort North Transvaal 1944 ,we then lived in an old Corner Double Story House,with large Balcony all Round it,anyway that Year there was the worst storm that was recorded in many many Years!
A tornado hit Roodepoort and believe it or not,every House on our street was falttened,it looked like a War Zone,the Rain,Hail and Wind just tore through and left nothing in its wake in the Street,and by the luck of whatever our old House stood as solid as ever.
One House left in a street that had so many! We were n a Corner Block!
As I was still so young,fear was not a factor and I also recall just after the actual Tornado ,both Greg and myseld went down with the old Enamel Basins on our heads so that the Hailand rain could hit on them!
It was then fun! But the devastation was horrific!
Cheers

[Ivan Cloherty]

During the war, after an 'All Clear' returning to the house declared safe after a bombing event, going upstairs with my elder sister, starting to play when the whole front of the house collapsed and we were left staring into the street below.

[John Arton]

Being put in the sea on a beach in Spain when we lived in Gibraltar, so must have been 3 years old then, apparently I loved the sea washing over me.
Next after moving back to the U.K. living in two rented houses in the Lake District.
1st one in Ambleside, no electricity, water by hand pump in kitchen, back door being like a stable door, annoying a very snooty cousin by sticking my finger in a cake she had baked for my eldest sisters birthday. Got flooded out one day as it was built into the side of a hill with the lane running alongside it. It also had a fox living in a shed in the garden, which had an big oak tree in it where my birthday party was held under it.
Next house over the hill from Windermere, again no electricity and again no inside toilet. It was a farm cottage and the ducks from the farm used to waddle into the house. In winter we got up one morning to find the kitchen full of snow that had come down the chimney and the back door blocked by snow so had to dig ourselves out before we could get to the outhouse. Used to play with the farmers son until one day I accidently poured tar over his long blond hair which resulted in him having to have all his hair cut off.
Next house was the first and only house that my parents owned. It was in a small village called Ings on the main road into the Lakes and must have one of the first houses built in the area after the war. This was 1955 and my parents had a mortgage of £2000 to buy it. It came with quite a bit of land, much overgrown to the extent that my younger brother got lost in the long grass they day we moved in. There was an abandoned bobbin mill next door with all its machinery intact where we used to play and in one of the three mill houses attached to the mill lived 3 elderly sisters from Crosby in Liverpool, whose father had been a sailing ship Master and owner. One of these sisters had done a voyage with him from Swansea all round Cape Horn to San Francisco and back and I still have her journal of that voyage, which included such hunger that they reverted to catching Albatross to eat.
I lived there until going away to sea at aged 16.
Strangely enough I have very little memory of my father, he died when I was 10 on board a Blue Star ship leaving Durban. In the 5 years that we lived at Ings when he was alive I can only recollect three occasions when I saw him on leave plus one time when we visited him on the California Star in Liverpool.
rgds
JA

[gray_marian]

My first memory was trying to walk across the kitchen. Kept falling down, discussing it with my mum a few years ago she explained the floor of the tenement was sloped and when I was thirteen months old they moved, I confirmed a square pattern on the floor which she said was black and white lino. No photographs exist of that room. Next memory aged two, attracted by the reflector light at the rear of a bike stood too close and owner reversed and knocked me over. Remember the bloodied ribbon and the doctor saying stitches wouldn't hurt......they did.
bw.jpg Mum,Dad & me 10mths, 1958

[Lou Barron]

Waking up in the bunk aboard the German raider and wondering where the hell i was