What’s your earliest memory as child and what age

One that used to be very vivid but less so now - my 1st birthday, a grandmother arrived while I was in the bath, and gave me a big teddy bear.
I still have him. Our old dog chewed half his face off when she was a pup, but the teddy hospital fixed him up splendidly - after he’d languished in a drawer for years!

The other, when I must also have been very little - a Christmas at the other GM’s house. There was a doll actually on the tree, which was for me, and I was put to bed in a drawer - presumably lined with a blanket or something.

Nothing else until I was at least 3 or 4.

Just over a year old and learning to walk. I fell and hit my head on the wall.

I must have been about a year and I remember lying in my pram in the garden and a woman came to look at me who was not my mother and I screamed and tried to tip over the pram. It is very vivid. I still feel the anger.

I had a memory throughout my childhood of a doctor coming to the house to stitch up a cut on someone's head. When I eventually mentioned this to my mother she said: "It was your head".

I still have a very faint scar in the middle of my forehead. Seems I was always falling out of the back door off the step or running helter-skelter down the hill we lived on. I was supposed to hold onto the pram that contained my baby sister but clearly didn't always.

The stitching incident happened the day before my third birthday, apparently.

My earliest memory is my first and only dog. I was a toddler possibly 2 1/2, I remember what he looked like, colour, name, and the rest has been filled in by my parents telling me all about it!

I also remember arguing with my brother about what we could remember....he trumped me by saying he could remember being born!

I can remember playing in my cot when about 18 months old.
As a small toddler, dressing up our Siamese cat Bambi, in dolls clothes and shelling him around the garden in a dolls' pram (he was a gentle and very forgiving cat!)

Wheeling not shelling!

I remember dancing in the kitchen for my grandad. He gave me 6d. He died before I was 3. It probably imprinted in my brain as one of last times I was him.

(I have his photo , aged 24 on my wall. I promised my Granny I would keep him safe.)

I remember looking into my brothers Moses basket. I was 2 when he was born. I also remember the not very nice feeling I had while looking at him. No name for the feeling, because I wasn't old enough to understand it but... not nice.

I also remember my grandads lovely walled kitchen garden. He spent hours in it and I loved being in it with him. Wonderful man.

he could remember being born
midgey So can I I remember someone grabbing me by my ankles, holding me upside down, shouting "it's a boy"; another voice may have shouted "send him back" - definitely not "put him back", but my ears were bunging up at this point; then followed a big slap on my bum which made me cry and left its mark!.

My first memory is at 2 and a half throwing a major tantrum and lying on the floor of the shop. My grandmother was offering to buy me an outfit, the one they were considering was a pale blue seersucker blouse with peter pan collar edged with lace, and a red wool skirt with straps. I loved the blouse, but hated the skirt, I remember thinking that I was much too old for skirt straps, and the material was harsh and rough. I could not understand that I could not have one without the other, and can feel the frustration even now at being unable to express this!

I like your spooky one @StMary!

Reminded me of my much younger sister at 3, saying ‘a lady’ used to sit on the end of her bed and smile at her.

We hadn’t long moved into the house and heard not long afterwards that the previous owner had died in childbirth.

I think I remember jumping up and down a little too vigorously in a big cot and somehow it overturned so that it was lying sideways on the rug.

My first memory is of sitting on a blanket on a small lawn which was behind and up some steps from the back of the cottage we lived in. It was Whit Monday 29 May 1944 and I was 9 months old. I can clearly remember a family picnic when black clouds rolled in, the sky darkened and big rain drops started to fall. My sisters, brother and Mum hastily gathered up the picnic and shot off inside leaving me alone on the rug, probably for just a few seconds whilst they got things inside. I remember the feeling of abandonment though.

This is a report I found when researching it:

"Holmfirth Flood of 1944
On Whit Monday May 29th 1944 after a hot, sunny afternoon a sudden storm with a violent cloudburst at about 6:30pm caused the Bilberry reservoir to burst its embankments again. It released even more water than in the 1852 flood and had a devastating effect along the Holme valley and into Holmfirth.

Some people were returning to their homes after the Whit Monday processions and singing in Victoria Park, others were in the local Valley Theatre when a flood warning flashed onto the screen.

Bridges were washed away, shops and other buildings were damaged or swept away. Thirteen factories were seriously damaged and 107 people had to be evacuated from their homes. Three people lost their lives.

The river in Holmfirth rose to a height of 18 feet."

It was only when I found this report online that I realised what my embedded memory was about and my older sister confirmed that it had happened as I remembered.

I was just three. Wearing a matching coat, bonnet and leggings in a dark red material I went with my Dad to my maternal grandmother's house. My Dad and Grandma had an argument and a dish was smashed on the floor. I remember the room, the Pyrex dish but had no understanding of the harsh words

I remember breaking my wrist on my 2nd birthday. Going to view a new house with mum and dad and the owner telling me to stay downstairs while she took mum and dad upstairs. I was about 3 /4. I stood at the bottom of the stairs thinking they would never come back.

My earliest indisputable memory is of breaking my arm aged 2 1/2. I can remember a lot of details about doing it, the wait for an ambulance, and even walking up some steps at the hospital behind a girl whose leg looked like it had been badly bitten by a dog.

An earlier 'memory' that stayed with me throughout my childhood was a vague one of sitting in something and looking at a wooden track in front of me.
Many years on, we were looking through old photos, and there was a photo of me - approx 18 months old, if not less - sitting in a funfair-style car on, you guessed, a wooden track!
The reaction of everyone around me when I said I remembered it was that I must have seen the photo before, but the photo was taken from a completely different angle - my memory is of the view from the car, not a view of it. I am quite sure it was a genuine memory.

I have lots of memories from 3 onwards.

I remember hiding in the outside toilet at the back of the house. I would have been under three. I can still hear Dad's voice shouting as he went up and down the street. It seemed to be quite a while before he found me. He was watching me while Mum was at work and I had sneaked out. I remember the big hugs when he found me and I didn't get a row - but remember him saying "we won't tell Mum"!! I never did it again.

I can remember being in a pram or pushchairs will all the family standing by our gate. A band went past with people in red jackets. I imagine it must have been coronation day so I would have been eighteen months.

Gagagran

What an early memory!
It seems that either fear or pain feature in a lot of people's first memories.

The description of the day given in the report matches with what my mum has told me about it.
She was about 11, and like so many people, she had been at those Whit Monday processions, in her case with the Sunday school, I think. Awful!

I can only remember horrible things like ;

Falling down in a puddle wearing a new coat and being terrified of my mum and dads reaction.

My dad shaving my head because I acted up at the hairdressers.

Waking up alone in a chalet ( Butlins or similar ) and being terrified .

Can vaguely remember my sister as a baby in a yellow plastic carrycot .

Ooops meant to add . All around 4-5 years old .

I do think some very early “memories” are of things we’ve been told about as a child and we’ve subconsciously taken ownership of them. I can picture myself standing in my cot screaming my head off become no-one was coming to get me but I’m not at all sure if it’s a genuine memory or my mind’s version after Grandma told me I was an attention seeker as a baby!

Making a bid for freedom at age 2, and deciding to visit a neighbour over the road on a summer Sunday lunchtime. And my dad frantic coming to look for me. I even remember the neighbour's name, Mrs Culley. I was wearing a white dress.