Do you remember odd details from long ago?

I can remember the registration number of my dad’s very first car and that was roughly 68 years ago ! Also recently on a particular day:date I thought that’s Lesley’s birthday- a girl at school I was not particularly friendly with 🤷‍♀️

I had a detail memory confirmed by my mother when I told her I remembered the window panes in the house where I was born...it was a thirties house. I told her the panes were oblong but not on end, lying sideways in the window frame.

She was so amazed. We left that house when I was two.

Having a pessary shoved-up bum by a male doctor as a 3yr old and feeling horribly shy & embarrassed! I was a very sensitive child & it still makes me feel odd. 😶

Rosiebee

Someone on the radio recently mentioned a Welsh hymn that I remember singing at school as a child - in Welsh. I spent the whole day with this lovely hymn going round in my head. How has my brain retained this for what must be nearly 60 years without me sadly even being able to speak Welsh. I won't have heard it since school as I moved to college in England at the age of 18 and have lived here ever since.

When I was at school I was in the choir. We were quite succesful in festivals etc and sang on TV too. We went on a week long trip to our twin town which was a suburb of Paris and gave a couple of concerts while there as well as being entertained with various trips. We learnt to sing the French National anthem for the trip and I still remember most of it although I don't remember what all the words mean. I think I did know at the time.

Thisismyname1953

When I was in the choir in grammar school we learned to sing the Owl and the Pussycat by Edward Lear. For some reason this afternoon it came into my head and I have been singing it for the past hour . I could remember most of it but had to check up on the bit about eating with a runciple spoon. Whatever one of those is 😂

My English teacher told us a runcible spoon was a metal spoon that had been made to look like silver but was made of base metal. Presumably she meant EPS. (Or is it EPNS? ) Electro-plated at any rate.

However, Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary says runicible is a nonsense word made up by Edward Lear.

So you pays your money and takes your choice!

Allira

I can remember the registration of my first car from 60 years ago - but none since!

Me too! I know my current car too but not the ones in between.

I can remember my mobile number but not my landline number as I rarely use it. I've had it for over 20 years but I have to look it up if I need to put it on a form!

When I was very small our three cats were Sir Sixie Sixpence, Tuppence and Penny Fluff (She was an angora). The neighbours' cat was Dee-Dee, at least that is what his name sounded like, but I could neither read nor spell at that time, so I have no idea if anyone even ever wrote the cat's name!

But for the life of me, I cannot remember the name of the Mininister's wife's cat at the Manse across the road - only that the cat disliked small children, intensely. And now there is no-one left to ask what that cat was called.

CariadAgain

Considering my memories are pretty non-existent until mid-teenage I remembered the hospital my mother had me in back in the 1950s - ie Derriford in Plymouth (was wondering whether I could ask the hospital what time I was born - for horoscope purposes - but I don't suppose they've kept those records all these years).

I remember the first time I realised my mother was an awful cook and I must have been about 5 years old when mince was part of the meal she gave me and my reaction to it was "It's awful....I've got a bad cook for a mother....I'll have to eat it though #sighs".

CariadAgain doesn't your time of birth show on your birth certificate?

Back in the late 40's, early 50s my Dad's car was an Austin 7. RPJ 170. He upgraded to a Ford Anglia DeLuxe (it had a clock - which was broken) EKT 541, when I was 4 years old. I can't remember the reg of his next car as he only had the Standard Ensign (in a sort of butterscotch colour) for a short while. He had difficulty seeing over the steering wheel. The next, Anglia 105E (BY 2872), later became my first car. By then I had left home so didn't really get to know his subsequent cars.

Both my children were born in Freedom Fields Hospital, daughter in 1978 and son in 1979. He then had surgery in Derriford Hospital a couple of years later.

Allira, I remember the number plate on my dad’s first car, he must have bought it when I was about eight, but like you, I have never remembered one since.

I’m another one with odd things in my head which have lasted for more than 70 years! Talking about number plates, I had a Lambretta scooter as my first vehicle at 17. The number plate was CTC66B. Now at 77, I can barely remember my present car’s number plate.

Yogitree I don't think it's usual practice for the time of birth to be entered on a birth certificate.
Time of birth is not on my own, my children's, parents or spouse's certificate.

I remember odd things. I can still see the lace detail on my nanna’s antimaccassar from over fifty years in my head for example, and remember the taste of a dessert my grandma made called Spanish Cream, which I’ve never had or heard of since.

I lived in Singapore between the ages of 1 and 3ish. I have always had a memory of standing at the gate to our house watching a hoard of Chinese people chase a runaway bull down the road in front of my house, yelling and waving sticks. I've always assumed it was some sort of false memory as no one else remembers it.

Then while going through some old photos I saw the gate, and there I was with my head poking through. Apparently I spent quite a lot of time watching the comings and goings on the road and chatting to everyone that passed by - possibly because the locals all knew me and used to stop and chat and give me various sweets. As I was only about 2 I can only guess that all our conversations were nonsense 😂 But it's nice to know my memory was probably true.

I remember being taken by my mother and maternal granny to see the Disney film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. It must have been winter 1945, before I was three.
When we left the cinema it was dark and had been raining. The street lights were reflected on the road. As we crossed the road, to my right I could see an elderly man lying on his back in the road with blood on his
forehead.

Coppernob

Both my children were born in Freedom Fields Hospital, daughter in 1978 and son in 1979. He then had surgery in Derriford Hospital a couple of years later.

One of mine was born in Greenbank in 1993, the other in Derriford two years later. I think Maternity was one of the last departments to move over.

A good memory was getting a toy stove for Christmas. I was 3 years old and was pretending to bake cookies. I put an empty baking pan into the oven and left the room for a few minutes. When I went to check the pan in the oven there were chocolate chip cookies on it . I don't know which of the grownups in the room put the cookies there but at the time I remember being very puzzled as to how this happened. The strange thing is I don't have any other memories until I was school age

Time of birth is only show on a certificate if it was a multiple birth (twins or more). The reason was to make it simple to determine which one was the eldest so as to lay claim to the family inheritance.

Looking back I have vivid memories of some events and can't recall others .I guess that it's the same for everyone .
Things which stick in my mind seem to be quite trivial .
Yesterday I tried to remember the names of old neighbours and their kids -but couldn't recall all of them .
I tend to recall quite vividly plants in the garden and paintings on the walls or a dress I wore -probably because I've always been attracted by colours and patterns .

I have no idea where Flete House was, Allira, but whenever my mum mentioned it when I was older, I always got the impression it was in Plymouth itself, but it could easily have been outside. I was only a child when I heard about it, and may have been mistaken. I’ve never tried to find it, partly because I’ve lived in Kent since I was 3 and have never been back.

Aveline

I remember my granddad's car registration number PSG 770. It was a Wolseley in Champagne beige. Really really useless information to clog my brain up with.

OLE 56 was the reg of the car my dad bought when I was 11. That’s nearly 70 years ago! My husband and I bought a car with the reg. MDD 58 in the 60s. Wish I’d kept ownership of those numbers. They’d probably be worth a bit now as personal number plates.

There appears to be no rhyme or reason why some memories pop into my head in the middle the night whilst awake. Here are some examples; playing hide and seek with cousins in our grandparents house, I knocked the large chintz decorated chamber pot spilling its contents whilst trying to hide under their bed. Yuck 🤢
The patterns on my granny’s pinny, which she wore over her clothes everyday indoors. Also her rolled down stocking to her ankles so as not to ladder or snag them. Granny’s glass button jar. The spiders in her outside toilet and the string holding the newspaper pieces for toilet paper hang from a hook on the wooden door that had large gaps at the top and bottom. By gum the wind used to blow through the toilet, it was certainly bitter cold and drafty on your bum. I do regards these a fond memories as they do make me smile to myself.
They serve to keep me grounded and remind me how fortunate I am.
Clearly some memories spring to mind I would rather not have, but we have no control over their impromptu occurrences.
When friends from way way back come to mind from primary school, I remember their names, I can see them in my minds eye. I often wonder if I am part of their memories.

I have aphantasia, but to compensate for that my memory is wonderful. Some of my old school friends ask me for details from long ago. There is a huge difference between memory and imagery.

Crossstitchfan

I have no idea where Flete House was, Allira, but whenever my mum mentioned it when I was older, I always got the impression it was in Plymouth itself, but it could easily have been outside. I was only a child when I heard about it, and may have been mistaken. I’ve never tried to find it, partly because I’ve lived in Kent since I was 3 and have never been back.

I remember years ago we were taking MIL somewhere in the South Hams and she pointed Flete House out to us, saying she'd had DH's sibling there years ago.