My Earliest Memory #160
My earliest memory or “Memories” (Because in my head they flow together, thanks to my Attention Deficit) start with me jumping on my bed and just having a great time!
Then it’s immediately followed by me playing with a small toy piano and singing.
After that fades away the next thing I can remember was our old Zenith TV. It was taken apart in the middle of the living room. It was being repaired and I remember how interesting it was to see what made it tick.
Submitted by Matt Cooper. It was these three memories that made him pursue a degree in electronics and eventually communications. He is currently head of quality assurance for a large broadband communications company. Matt also studied music and learned to write, record and edit his own music as well as play several different instruments.
But in the end, it all comes back to that first memory. Just like jumping on his bed, he always tries to have as much fun as possible!
My Earliest Memory #159
Walking.
Submitted by Rod Taylor.
My Earliest Memory #158
My earliest memories multiply in numbers.
It’s like they all were at the same time and I don’t have The One.
But the most vivid one is of my Mum and Dad. Having breakfast together with the sun peeking through the morning window and me watching the scene from the other side of the room.
I think that was the first and last time I have ever saw my dad giving my mum a peck on a cheek before he left for work.
My Earliest Memory #157
I always have memories of these brown puppy shoes.
I remember the EXACT texture of the cloth when i licked it, how i kept trying to rip off the black and white bead eyes with my mouth, the red nose, the floppy brown ears, the bumps under the shoes… basically everything about it, and the memory is so VIVID.
Just like remembering something you saw yesterday. i also remember moving my legs up and down while i sat up in a high place, and it was grey-ish everywhere.
Submitted by Betty B. She always used to assume they were shoes she had when she was a child (aged 4-6 years old), and one day asked her parents what happened to them.
They’d bought the shoes before visiting their country, so they remember the date and exactly how old she was (she had just turned 8 months old). But they lost the shoes there, so she couldn’t have seen the shoes after she was 8 or 9 months old… also the grey-ish place was actually inside a plane…
That’s all.
She still have some memories of her childhood (2-9 years old) that she remembers in great detail. She recalls how she used to think as a child and how she used to feel during those moments too. Right now, she’s a 15 year old girl, and wonders if that makes any difference remembering stuff.
My Earliest Memory #156
Crying on the way to school because I did not want my mother to take
me, I wanted to go on my own.
1st teacher Mrs Fulton; large black stove in one corner for heat; brown radio to hear ‘Listen with Mother’ in the afternoon before our nap; small bottles of milk, frozen in Winter.
Best of all doors onto the play area where there was a large sandpit.
Submitted by Jenny Richards. School was Coppice Road School, Solihull, it is still there, hope it is as much fun now.
My Earliest Memory #155
I’d spilt juice on the bedspread, and was attempting to suck the juice out of the fabric so I wouldn’t get caught.
I must’ve been about 2 1/2.
I can’t remember who I was afraid would catch me, or whether or not they did (although, I assume that they did).
Submitted by Tiarn Warren, who still spills juice on the bedspread on occasion but now, 18 years later, knows how to use a washing machine to destroy the evidence.
My Earliest Memory #154
My memory is of a huge noise and the terror that noise engendered in me.
I must have been about 2 or 3 years old, and was in my pushchair or pram.
My mother, sister and I were walking along our quiet country lane – well it must have been a B-road – when this low rumbling started, growing relentlessly louder and louder until it blocked out all other sound.
It turned out to come from a convoy of army lorries – possibly even a tank as well – which passed close by us on its way from the army base at Arborfield in Berkshire, to maybe Winnersh or Windsor.
Never one to miss an opportunity for teaching, Mum explained, “That’s a convoy.”
That must have been one of my earliest words, and when I hear it I am taken back to that day and to the memory of fear associated with – not the vision of big lorries – but with the huge rumbling sound of them bearing down, as it seemed, on us.
Submitted by Pamela Slade from Canterbury, Kent.
My Earliest Memory #153
Time to sleep… a midmorning nap.
I’m somewhat reluctant.
She doesn’t want to make an exception.
She puts her arms around me.
A cuddle and a kiss… I fight the tiredness but it’s a battle long won by the promise of sleep.
I’m warm and safely cocooned in the perfume of her.
I burrow into the hollow of her embrace.
She rocks back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, back…
Submitted by Adeela Kasoojee.
My Earliest Memory #152
It was my auntie Jenny, feeding me smarties at my Nan’s house in Brixton.
I have no idea if this is a ‘true’ memory, or a false one that’s just became more real in the intervening years.
My Earliest Memory #151
I was two years old, we were visiting Michelham Priory in Sussex.
The reason I remember it so vividly is because of a torrential storm; reaching up to hold my Mum’s hand, she was pregnant with my younger brother and wearing her green wool cape, the only thing that fitted over her bump.
I can smell the damp wool next to me and as my Dad is running to get the car a huge bolt of lightning lit him and a tree up in my vision.
We were standing under this gate (above), I can still see him silhouetted against the tree now.
Everyone is surprised when they find out how old I was, but because I think it was so visual, but also had sound, smell and touch too, that is why it’s been imprinted on me.
Submitted by Maddie Grant. She was born on the South Coast of England, and spent much of her formative years with her brother visiting graveyards for her parents’ genealogical studies and on picnics at country houses, giving her a love of history and nature. Emigrating to Australia in 2008 to be with her Aussie husband, she’s busy learning the flora and fauna of her new continent to teach to her baby son.
