Childhood memories - do you have any?

fiorentina; my book has arrived. Kathleen Dayus omnibus; got it cheap off ebay. Had another book about growing up in Hockley but found it badly written. I've only read the first chapter of this one, thus far, but it's very well written. 750 pages of sheer nostalgia!

Annie what happened in '66 was the first disaster I remember - I was at the annual fair with my friend when we were told although I can't remember who told us. We were both very upset and went straight home. There have been so many terrible things since then but that remains one that sticks in my mind.

I know someone who lost all her childhood memories after her father died very suddenly. I’m surprised at so many here having few memories as I’ve always remembered so much.
My first memories are from age two and from then on I remember nearly everything, the many houses and schools, places, people, my clothes, things said, my feelings. It’s all there, safe in my head forever. I’m the family historian.

I was brought up in a Welsh mining village, home full of love, but also - I didn't know until much later - there was such a deep feeling of security. I went to the same school as my father had, so many aunts, uncles, cousins, the uncles and aunts were cousins of my father, I wasn't aware of the relationships they just were. There was continuity, every year two trips a year by train to Barry Island, one trip for the chapels, the other for the miners club, same children on both and all from the same school, every street did a lorry for the annual carnaval, had done long before I was born, every street had a band , Sundays everyone walked to chapel, nothing change, same every year. We made swings on lamp posts as our parents had done . Christmas parties all the chapels got together , again same children as in school. I thought it the safest place in the world until a disaster struck in 1966, this left me with a feeling that there was no place which was safe and I still have that feeling fifty one years on.

Ta ra a bit duck

NanKate Ay up me duck - that takes me back!

Jocarter - so sorry to read your account. That sad story shows us that money isnt the key to happiness!. You didnt want for material things but didnt have parental love. Others on this thread have had happy childhoods in spite of not being at all well off. What a message to us all in this materialistic age!
Sorry - sermon over!

Not many memories, very distant mother & busy working father. Both my DS & DD have told me they had brilliant happy childhoods & hope they can pass that on to their own children. How wonderful is that to hear.

I have one clear memory I was about 15 I was at school when someone came to say I was needed at home Nothing more than that It was only a short walk home but I had that awful heart thumping, dry mouthed feeling something bad had happened. I remember walking very quickly with my stomach churning As I arrived, I can’t remember who told me, but my grandad had died He was a huge part of my life and I adored him He hadn’t been ill but had a sudden heart attack which killed him within minutes of him arriving for work he was just 61 I remember very clearly running up to a bedroom and collapsing onto the floor breaking my heart sobbing, after a while my Dad came up to me but I remember telling him to leave me alone I don’t remember anything after that.

Sorry, that was to NanKate

Just think, Shakespeare would have sounded much like Jasper Carrot.

I have some very clear childhood memories and know that I have blocked others that I have no wish to remember. My childhood was not all bad; I did well at junior school and I used to lose myself in books I brought home from the library, but overall it was a miserable time and I lived through some very traumatic events. Times were different then and I had few expectations and so, bad as it was, I didn't know much different. For a couple of years, until they moved away, I had a best friend whose family took me swimming with them after school on Mondays and then back to their house for tea and games. I loved my visits to them, but in a way their lives were as unreal to me as an Enid Blyton story. My husband and a few very close friends know some of the details from my childhood and are much more appalled at what I went through than I am myself, but I'm a survivor and have turned my experiences into something positive. I have chosen not to share my worst memories with my children and I know that if I were to do so they would have a better understanding of who I am, but the cost to them would be too great.

Fiorentina Tegan you are both bringing back memories for me. I was so lucky to have such a carefree childhood. I was born in Handsworth Wood in 1946. I went to secondary school in Edgbaston and the bus took me along Broad Street everyday.

I visited both the Black Country Living Museum (where they film Peaky Blinders) and Blist Mill Victorian Village in Ironbridge on hols recently. Even though I haven't lived in Birmingham since I was eleven I felt I was back home. I love to hear the accent and enjoy the humour.

As they would say Ta ra a bit duck ?

I had a very happy childhood and can remember lots about it. I just wish I had told my mum and dad this before they died.

Same here Teetime. No happy memories at all from my childhood.

I have loads, I was a lucky girl, wonderful parents and lovely childhood, happily able to pass on the same to my children! I write a lot of short stories about childhood but could easily fill a book

Wouldn't like to be there after dark! We thought we had a private family grave, but it turned out that there were over 100 people buried there [it was second hand; typical of my family!]. And, of course, there are the Roman Centurians that are supposed to march down Icknield Street ...

Sounds like a good plan! Warstone Lane cemetery is very atmospheric.

fiorentina; am all tied up with stuff at the moment, but when I've got myself organised [whenever that is!] I'd love to swap memories with you! I'm planning to get some books about Hockley that have been recommended; The Girl from Hockley' is one of them. And also planning to go to the 'family mausoleum' at Warstone Lane where a local history group will take you round and find out more info if you give them details of your family. I don't live in Brum any more, but I love going back there.

Tegan2. Hockley, not very far away then. I lived just off Broad Street and my school was where the Symphony Hall and Convention Centre now stand. It's all very different now........ (getting all nostalgic! ?)

I have lovely memories of my childhood in Worcester and later Guernsey and holidays in Cornwall and Devon. Snowy Cristmasses, using my mother's tea tray as a toboggan.
Came to NZ when I was 11 and the memories are not so good of that!

Jo - so glad that you have had such happy times with your lovely husband, to compensate for the awful childhood you endured.
My enduring childhood memories include the chats I used to have with my angelic maternal granny. She was born in 1889, so had a long memory of a lost world. Brought up in wealth by nannies and governesses, she was one of the first women to drive in Devon, taking her father shooting in his 1906 Wolseley. I still have her linen dust coat. She played the violin in an orchestra, wearing gorgeous black silk, velvet and jet-beaded dresses. She ran away to join the Red Cross and become a VAD nurse in Malta. She sailed to the other side of the world in 1919 to marry her handsome ANZAC soldier. She then lived in the most primitive, pit-sawn hut in the mountains on their sheep station, having to ride many miles on dangerous narrow clay roads to have her babies. The babies were carried back pikau, slung across the saddle, balanced by a sack of sugar. Washing and bathing were done in an icy mountain stream. There was a camp oven over a fire for cooking for a long time, and she had to learn fast how to cook, scrub the shearers' clothes, grow all their own food. These memories are so precious, and I have passed them on already to my own grandchildren. Don't underestimate how little anecdotes of a distant past will engage the young.

fiorentina; no Hockley!

I've also kept diaries through the years but when I look back at them most of the entries wouldn't exactly set the world alight. Although I put in some momentous events (such as the evening I walked out of my school gates after an open evening and heard the people behind me saying that Kennedy had been shot), most of the stuff is so mundane that it's difficult even for me to find it interesting.

Luckygirl Quite a coincidence really.

Eleothan - I was born in Tregarvon Rd - they are just around the corner from each other - I looked it up online. These houses are worth about a million now!!!

I think I could write lots and lots more reasons why my childhood was happy, so I realise now how lucky I've been really. None of it material stuff, but just having a nice clean bed, and my slippers warming by the fire when I came in from school.