Childhood memories - do you have any?

Could write several volumes - but I doubt anyone would ever want to read them!

I have lovely memories of a very happy childhood. My sisters and I lived in a small market town in the beautiful Cumbrian countryside. We roamed far and wide with our friends and cousins who lived two doors away. I'm sure I remember every holiday we went on. We didn't have much money so we didn't go away every year and when we did it was just for a week. I think I could write a decent book too, not that anyone would be interested.

So many wonderful memories , so much love and laughter

My husband has lots of happy memories from chikdhood. I don't. The difference is that mine wasn't happy?

My childhood was happy enough but isolated, very little interaction with others. I have very few detailed memories through to teenage years although there is a more generalised sense of how things were I think after hearing others speak about it. It frustrates me.

yes I too could write several volumes, but they would be very depressing. I had a horrible childhood..so not many happy memories..

I can remember back to when I was 3, living with my parents in my granddad's and granny's house in Clapham. I have very clear and detailed memories of my childhood (up until about the age of 20) and the different areas and houses I lived in, our friends, neighbours, etc. I also remember the names of all my classmates (and I went to several schools) and recall lots of things about them and their families.

But I often find it difficult to remember what I did the day before yesterday!

I think pensionpat has probably pinpointed why there are differences in the clarity of people's childhood memories. The friends I know who have had difficult childhoods invariably say they can remember being anxious and unhappy, but very little detail of their day-to-day lives. I wouldn't say my childhood was perfect (whose is?) but it was reasonably safe and happy and certainly not traumatic in any way.

The only vivid memories I have are unhappy ones. That is why I have worked hard at making sure my children and granddaughter have happy memories.

Many happy family memories.
Happy times spent with my lovely grandparents.
A lovely younger sister
Wonderful border collie dog who was my best friend

But I'm sure as with most people there are memories that I do not wish to think or dwell on

My childhood memories sometimes keep me awake at night and not in a bad way. Life was so varied for forces children in the fifties and sixties that sometimes we hardly had time to draw breath before there was another posting, another country, another school, different friends and the in built adjustment mechanism we relied on being cranked up a gear to see us through once again.

I am often emotional when world events send my memory into overdrive. I tell DH that if he ever wants to revisit his childhood he only has to drive two hours up the A1. A lot of my childhood was spent in what is now a war zone.

I was very lucky though and managed to dodge a long spell at boarding school spending my teenage years in an idyllic part of England with my family around me. Some of my friends were not so fortunate.

I have many memories but my two sisters both remember lots of things that I have absolutely no recollection of, but sometimes their memories conflict with each other so not sure which one is right.

I think I had a fairly happy time - days out at the sea side, sometimes a whole week, always travelling by coach. I remember a holiday in Bournemouth where the landlady (it was always a B&B) had a rockinghorse in the hall - what a treat! and there was a tree walk with fairy lights. Such innocenr delights. When I was in my early teens the day we went away a new Beatles record came out and we rushed to the record shop as soon as we arrived (but I don't think we could play it until we got home).

Fairly strict parents but was that a bad thing? Great memories of a childhood in Essex, hols in Lancashire, Ireland and Wales.Teenage years a blast, unfortunately had to leave when I was 16 as father's job took us way up north.

I had a happy childhood. School holidays were spent on the beach a short walk away or in the field at the bottom of our garden. I sometimes rode my bike to grannies house on a Saturday and loved to play ball with her dog, mum wouldn't let me have a dog. Her house had gas lights and a lovely roaring fire in winter
My brother and I were loved and cared for but we didn't have luxuries, mum and dad never had a car and we didn't have a home phone until I was 17. My first holiday was a week in a caravan in Somerset when I was 11.
I don't remember much day to day stuff though, mine would be an essay rather than a book.

we had a brilliant childhood,the best parents ,a mum who sang as she worked around the house a dad who never raised his voice in anger but would put his newspaper down and say "Girls your mother says you're being noisy ,I think you need to give her poor ears a rest" Sunday evenings round the piano with dad and granny playing and us all singing then finishing with a selection from the last night of the proms.Going to second hand bookshops with dad and exchanging the books we got last week for new ones.All fighting for space in granny's bed so she could frighten us with ghost stories and mum coming upstairs and threatening us all with a smack if we didn't get to sleep...even granny.Hiding under the covers to stifle our giggles when she left the room.I always say if my grandkids have even a fraction of the happy memories I have of my granny I'll be delighted .She was an inspiration and a joy.My mum and dad are sadly missed every day but the memories are as fresh as they ever were

I remember my parents loud and sometimes violent arguments and rows that often woke me at night, followed by days of tense silences and bickering. Sometimes, they would only communicate via us children and I remember feeling the awkwardness of having to relate a message that one of them would want relaying to the other without actually having to speak. And the knowledge that we were very much poorer than any of our neighbours, although I don't remember being hungry. Not a happy childhood.

It's sad that some had such difficult childhoods they either chose to blot them out or have erased them completely. My husband didn't have a bad childhood and from things his mother used to tell me when she was alive they were very poor but no doubt loved. His brother is 7 years older and was a war baby so also moved around - he spent the first few years of his life in Germany and was badly bullied when they came back to the UK - they said he was 'different'. His maternal grandmother was a witch and had treated my MIL and her siblings dreadfully even when they grew up although surprisingly I actually liked her and often visited when we lived nearby but obviously she was very old by then. His sister is 3 years younger and they are much closer but she often jokes she thinks she was adopted as there are no photos of her but I'm sure she remembers things they did. My own childhood I was awkward, very shy and quite anxious probably as I was an only child but on the whole it was very happy. I can even remember my pram being in my bedroom. My husband often says I live in the past - maybe he's right - maybe when I retire I'll start that book for my own GC

I had a happy childhood and have a few isolated memories but not many at all My Dad always said he couldn't remember any of his childhood although he had a good memory up to his death

Like Eloethan, I can vividly recall so much of my past, but not so much the recent past!

My memories would also fill several volumes. I wish I could remember more about my father, but he died when I was eight. However, my mother and two older sisters were my world and we were a very close-knit little unit. We had many happy times together.

I, too, was an anxious, self-conscious child who loathed school and, honestly, just wanted to stay with my mother all the time. Perhaps having lost Dad, my subconscious was afraid of losing her too.

Anyway, I'm now a mother of four, grandmother of one, but oh, how I miss my mum and my lovely sisters. Nobody left with whom to reminisce.

Loads of memories, some happy, some sad. I can remember nights spent in the Morrison shelter ( a sort of iron cage with a solid top) in the living room, not worried about bombs but only that one of my curling rags had fallen out. I can remember all the evacuees who were billeted on us. I can remember the trifle with hundreds and thousands sprinkled on it that was the pudding at the grammar school on the day that I sat the second part of the 11 plus. I can remember the little cavity in the garden wall where I posted letters to the fairies. What I can't remember is where I left my glasses.

I have lots of memories from the age of two and a half, possibly earlier but breaking my arm at two and a half is the first memory I can date accurately, and which is surprisingly detailed.
I have known other people who have no memories of their life before starting school, which used to surprise me, as my own pre-school memories could fill the first volume of my yet-to-be/never-to-be written life story.

My dad wrote down his life history in his seventies, and since his death this September, age 84, I have read it (in floods of tears at times). His many memories dating from early childhood are fascinating, not just as part of our family history, but as a part of social history. A blend of gruelling poverty (brought about for his family by the Depression) and simple, typical childhood joys. When writing his memories, Dad wasn't expecting anyone to read them -he genuinely didn't expect anyone to be interested - but during the three years that we knew he was terminally ill, I persuaded him that his children and grandchildren would all love, at some later stage, to read about his life. I am so glad that he agreed, as we now have what to us is such a lovely record of his life, written in his own words. So, if any of you have thought of putting your memories on paper but haven't yet done it - DO IT NOW

My childhood memories are very clear, like a series of brightly coloured pictures. I had a happy childhood in spite of wartime and quite a lot of illness in the family. If you are are loved you are happy. It was quite a long time before I realised that it was not like this for everybody.

We never had much money to spare, but I realise my life was comfortable compared with many. Always modestly nice houses and gardens, a car and a telephone, enough to eat - my mother was a genius at making the most of rationing. She made most of my clothes and very nice they were.

I remember distinctly that I was less happy in adolescence, but I suppose this is the case with most people. Puberty spoilt everything! I still had a good life, though, and would much rather be a child than an adult.

NO happy memories here. I have often thought of writing a book about it but 'Mommie Dearest' has already been done and I think writing about it would make me even more disturbed.

I could write a book about my childhood. I remember the tiniest details, all the toys etc., I want to write a book for my grandchildren when I get old!

My earliest memory is of collecting our dog (a golden retriever called Dawn). I insisted on wearing my best party dress and Dawn was sick in my lap so I got told off. Most of my memories involve getting told off in some way or other. I would prefer not to have memories of my childhood. I think there must have been happy times but I don't remember them.