Sue

I have a very clear memory of sitting on my father's lap - I think I must have been very young, about three. He had been in hospital for some months being treated for TB. I can remember his dressing-gown which was a thick wool fawn check. He smoked a pipe with a face carved into the bowl which fascinated me. I can remember these times being very peaceful and having a sense of security.

Another memory was of a fire in our home.We lived in a small terraced house with one living room. It was one or two days before Christmas. One of the old style paraffin heaters had flared and set the decorations alight. The room was badly damaged and I can remember sitting on one end of the settee whilst the other end was still smouldering. My mother was distressed and crying. I remember the smell of smoke and the tree crumbling and burnt. I think I was about six. Neighbours came to help and order returned. I don't remember Christmas being any different that year. We were lucky that no one was hurt.

Ted

My earliest memory is when I was about five years old I think. My parents used to rent rooms where landladies lived in. My brother used to cry a lot and they frequently had to find new digs. I remember it being at night. I was being carried on my dad's shoulders. Our mum was wheeling a pram next to us with my baby brother and all their possessions in it. We were sheltering under a railway bridge from the rain and I just felt happy because I was on my dad's shoulders and it felt like a great big adventure.

Juanjo

1972-1973

I guess that memories from nursery school should be considered some of the earliest ones. So, what I remember about the nuns who ran that school, quite special because it was mainly for children with hearing disabilities but with external groups for children without those disabilities.
I remember vaguely teachers and classrooms, corridors and probably the tiny toilets (that didn´t look that tiny for at the time) -I say probably because the memory of the toilets could come from other places and not from that school-

I remember waiting for my mum to pick us (my brother and me) up, after lessons, sitting on those chairs where one of the nuns had some kind of a reception.

Not much, my memories from that time are weak.

Martin

Like looking down the wrong end of a telescope at something tiny and distant - I was perhaps three - it seemed like it was the first time I'd stepped out into daylight - I was in an undulating grassy meadow near to home, with my 5-year-old brother and my my father then in his mid-twenties - we were picking wild mushrooms.
That's it! Nothing happened, no drama and no apparent reason to remember?

Holy Cross

1954 – I remember this day, it was my first day of primary school at the age of five. I didn’t want to go. The school sat out in the countryside, high up, overlooking the mouth of the river Medina estuary in the northern part of the Isle of Wight in southern England. The school was on the East Cowes side of the estuary. The school was run by nuns who lived at the convent of the Holy Cross adjoining the school. In the end, my mum had to take me to school against my will. We traveled on a green double decker bus for about half an hour; a journey I would make twice a day for the next six years. My classroom was on a second story. Mum took me up the stairs to meet my teacher. Her name was Sister Marguerita, a tall beautiful lady of olive coloured complexion, black hair, with a friendly smile showing even white teeth. I later learnt that she became principal, replacing Mother Crowley. She and mum wanted to show me the playground through a pair of frosted glass French doors. I was petrified as I knew we were high up and I didn’t know what was on the other side of the doors. They dragged me crying with my feet skating on the floor through the doors onto the playground. I remember seeing a large sand box in that playground. I grew very attached to Sister Marguerita.

1952 - Falling In

I do have vague memories of my early years - but I think that they are more 'imprints' than they are true memories. My Uncle Charlie hanging dead from the first floor bannister at my Gran's .. my great gradmother scary in all black lace who was a disgraced lady from C.Wicklow ... seeing my father kill a cat with a poker ... But one of my earliest 'true' memories is when I fell into the canoe lake because I was watching the older boys crabbing and the even older ones sailing their model yachts. The upshot of this event was a spell in Queen Mary's with scarlet fever (an illness not a person) where I remember particularly the Victorian painted tiles that are now on show at the Portsmouth Museum (I think).

My Great Aunts

My Great Aunts, Mabs & Ethel, were great hand knitters. They knitted
“twin sets” for my mother and pullovers, socks and gloves for the rest of the family!
Mum would take us to the wool shop in Norwich. We were allowed to choose our own colours - I remember the wool was called “Emu”.
My Great Aunts would come round for tea. After tea they would take out their knitting and knit!
I was fascinated by the way they knitted - so one day they showed me
“How to Knit”! This was in the summer of 1953 – I was eight. My sister had been born in the June.
My first knitting, under their supervision, was a pair of reins for my sister –totally impractical!
When they were finished my Great Aunts were there to see them put on my sister, who ran down the garden stretching them to almost the length of the garden path!
Everyone, including my Great Aunts, fell about laughing!!

1964

1964. My godparents' house in New York. Watching the Beatles sing
`I Wanna Hold Your Hand' on the Ed Sullivan show while the silhouettes
of my screaming teenage cousins danced wildly in front of the flickering TV.

Coventry

40 Ranulf Croft, Coventry, 1944 When Eric and Kathleen used to bring me back from Stourbridge, where they lived, my uncle would park his splendid car (or so it seemed to me) in front of our house. I often stayed at their home as a child, in large part I think to provide my cousin Alison with company of her own age. She was almost exactly one year younger than me.
This time, however, I distinctly recall walking around the corner into the croft and crossing the road to reach for the latch on the front gate. I am wearing a tailored brown coat, made by my mother, with a darker brown velvet collar, and matching felt beret. (Think Harrods children's department and you get the picture.)
I climb the stairs and go into the back bedroom where my mother is sitting on the edge of the bed, her long hair flowing over her shoulders as dark as a raven's wing. (Usually it is rolled up in practical but unbecoming fashion, in accordance with hard times.) Look, she says, nappy in hand, her mouth full of safety pins, Here's your little sister. I look, and there she is: Bridget Anne.
I am told it was love at first sight. But that blind emotion was all too soon to become confused with responsibility. When my father finally joins the Navy towards the end of the war, he tells me to look after my mother and Bridget, for I am the man of the family now. (Well, he did want a son, and what he got was me.) I take this instruction very seriously, placing childish thoughts and needs aside to do my very best.
I think a lot about this responsibility in later years. I was after all, only three.

Coal Shed

My earliest memory was in the year 1959, I was 5.

We lived in Crewe, and I distinctly remember locking my mum in the coal shed.

She was there for some time. I remember the smell of the coal and the dust, and the padlock.

I also remember the pinny she was wearing with big florals all over it.

However, I don't remember how long she was in the coal shed for!!

Leyton

I remember my mum commenting to her friend how much I enjoyed playing under the table and how I was happy with my own company and a much better child when my sister wasn't around, actually I was looking up their skirts and admiring the view.. 1979

Another very early memory was the National Front planning to march through Leyton and the local corner shop was suddenly all boarded up, I didn't have a great grasp of politics at the time but I remember feeling dread all around me. In my mind an army of monsters were going to come crashing down Leyton Park Road, destroying everything in sight - infact nothing happened that night.. 1979

Holly

I used to like hiding behind the laurel bush at the end of the garden and making 'mud pies' by stirring a stick into the earth and adding a bowl of water from the pond.

I also remember watching how the shadows moved across my bedroom ceiling caused by headlamps as cars drove along our street at night.

I also remember looking forward to a particular point in the drive to my grandparents when we would go over a small bridge - dad would speed up on purpose and my stomach would jump up weightlessly for a second.

Annie Loop

It was probably August 6th or 7th, 1959. We had just moved into our new house (don't remember the old home, even though we used to visit our old neighbors a lot). My father was helping my mother through the door with my newborn little sister who had been born on the 4th. My twin sister and I turned 3 on the 21st.

Pram

My earliest memory was in my pram with the hood up, - the smell of the plastic, and something, perhaps a pompom, hanging from the corner... also my cot with transfers on the inside that I remember trying to pick off.

Knicks

In my pushchair, about 3 years old. Mum and her friend ("Auntie Ethel") were out for a walk on the path alongside the Tech College. Mum was telling Auntie Ethel about my "dirty habit" of wetting my knickers and flushing them down the toilet. She went on to say she had to call in Bill the Plumber all the time to unclog the pipes. It was true. I remember doing it, and I remember seeing the Plumber pulling my soggy knicks out.

Bomb Site

When I was 3 or 4 years old, in 1948, I was playing in the street (Edgeley Road in Clapham) with other kids and we crawled through a wooden fence to play on the bomb site. I remember that later my mother gave me a severe telling-off about how dangerous it was and I must never go there again.