Your earliest memory

Caleo they did become friends. At this point I would only have been two or three. There was a Czech who remained in contact with us - and sent me little presents at Christmas - but that stopped during the uprising over there after the war and I remember hearing my mother say she thought he must have been killed. Contact was also kept with one of the Dutch - we visited him and his family in 1960. And the Met man and his family also remained lifelong friends. Good things did come out of all the horrors of war, and of course as a small child living far from any cities I wasn't aware of the horrors.

My 2nd birthday. My brother was born at home. Nanna took me to park and when we got back I had a baby brother in a blue crib. Noisy little thing from what I remember

I was 2/3 years old (I have a grainy photo somewhere). My Dad kept hens and I can remember being surrounded by them in the pen.
My other memory must have been at about 3/4, because I couldn’t yet read and hadn’t started school. We had a piano and I remember tapping the keys and wondering what the symbols above the lid meant (the manufacturer’s name). I learnt to read before I started school at just 4. My Mum always says that Dad taught me to read from the newspaper! Can’t remember that!

Holding on to the side of mum's chair, jumping up and down and saying 'please don't send me back' I meant to nursery school because I hated it so much, so I must have been about 3 🙄

I was about two and my first memory is of sitting on our swing and my older sister feeding me earth from an old trowel. I can still remember the crunchiness of it! Not sure how much I ate.

I was two, we were sailing on the Icelandic steamship company's ship Gullfoss that sailed from Rejkavik to Torshavn, and then down to Leith where we got on and from there to Copenhagen to visit my grandmother. Daddy took me to watch the boiler-men shovelling coke into the ship's furnace - the boiler-room had hatches that were open at deck level on the main deck.

Later during the crossing, but I do not know when a gale blew up and Mummy and I sat wrapped in one of the ship's blue blankets on the aft deck watching the waves, until it got too rough and we had to go down into our cabin.

This must have been the summer of 1954.

The next time we sailed on Guilfoss, she had been fitted with a diesel engine and the fumes made me travel sick! It must have been the fumes, as the sea does not make me sick.

I was in the back sitting room at my grandparents' house watching Andy Pandy for the first time and I cried when the programme finished. My godmother was with me and assured me that Andy Pandy would be back. Andy was on Tuesday afternoons, the afternoon my godmother always visited my grandparents.

I remember running outside to my mother who was talking to the neighbour! I was excited to tell her I had dressed myself on my own. No one else in the house. She was not interested but the lady talking to my mother was and said I had done well. I was two years old and that was the start of my very independent life!

My earliest memory is when I was in hospital for an eye operation (I was born with a squint). I think I was 3 and had my 4th birthday in hospital. I remember being given blue medicine in a little cup before the surgery. It tasted funny and made my mouth very dry. Afterwords my eye was covered with a wad of cotton wool kept in place with sellotape? I also remember screaming and kicking when the nurses tried to change my dressing and clean my eye. They used to hold me down. I vividly remember a long needle coming near my eye as well, which terrified me. I think that was to sterilise my eye. I also remember one of the nurses reading a story to me at night about Rupert Bear. On the day going home I was in a car covered in a green blanket to keep me warm. Gosh, that was 65 years ago.

I remember being in a bed and crying. Someone was comforting me, trying to calm me down and saying it was all ok and look there's a light outside [a street lamp was level with the window as bedroom was on the first floor].

When I remembered it as an older child I rushed to the main bedroom to see the street lamp. It wasn't there.

Therefore the memory has to have been before we moved [far away from the old house after an extremely disturbing incident there] so I must have been 2 years old.

I think I was so affected by the chaos at the time which is why it stuck in my mind. I've since confirmed the event with a relative who was there at the time.

Remember sitting in my pram with my ginger cat under the covers. I kept saying ‘Sandy Sandy’ & she told me Sandy was not here. Got to the Arches that the Railway went over & Sandy came out. Was made to stay there by Mum & I can remember his yowling echoing down the road! Also remember when I was 2 & my Nan bought my brother downstairs for me to hold! Still have many more memories but those are my favourites!

Holding my baby sister when she came home from hospital. I was three years old. Sadly she died last year of a brain tumour.

Cabbie21

I have a visual memory of my Dad appearing at the back door, carrying the dustbin lid which was covered with about 12 inches of snow, to show us. I must have been just turned two.

The next memory is of sitting in my high chair playing with coloured bottle tops, which I called ‘ corks’. I guess they were metal, certainly not plastic. I don’t know how old I was: young enough for a high chair, but old enough to know not to put them in my mouth.

I have a similar memory like your "corks". I was playing with shells I found on the garden path and I called them "fishes houses".

Taichinan

I have quite a few wartime memories as we lived near an airfield - but nothing dreadful. We had, I think, some Poles/Czech/Dutch pilots billeted with us. One day everyone rushed outside to see some aircraft flying low and one of them "waggled its wings". Everyone cheered and my mother said "Oh they're back! They're back!"
Then there was the Met Man who brought me a small met balloon, the first balloon I had ever seen. It burst as I was playing with it and I spent ages looking for it because I wouldn't believe that the dirty crumpled piece of rubber they showed me was all that remained of the lovely white balloon! Oh what a cornucopia of memories this is awakening - I'll stop now!!

Did you and your family feel the pilots to be personal friends?
You are younger than I. My mother and father had Polish officers biletted in our house and I clearly remember them as friends.

Two, being carried by an aunt in Holland and feeding chickens

I have quite a few wartime memories as we lived near an airfield - but nothing dreadful. We had, I think, some Poles/Czech/Dutch pilots billeted with us. One day everyone rushed outside to see some aircraft flying low and one of them "waggled its wings". Everyone cheered and my mother said "Oh they're back! They're back!"
Then there was the Met Man who brought me a small met balloon, the first balloon I had ever seen. It burst as I was playing with it and I spent ages looking for it because I wouldn't believe that the dirty crumpled piece of rubber they showed me was all that remained of the lovely white balloon! Oh what a cornucopia of memories this is awakening - I'll stop now!!

I have a visual memory of my Dad appearing at the back door, carrying the dustbin lid which was covered with about 12 inches of snow, to show us. I must have been just turned two.

The next memory is of sitting in my high chair playing with coloured bottle tops, which I called ‘ corks’. I guess they were metal, certainly not plastic. I don’t know how old I was: young enough for a high chair, but old enough to know not to put them in my mouth.

I have a lot of memories of my early childhood,but I can't put them in order .
I think that my Grandna and I travelled by steam train to the Welsh Borders . I don't know how we travelled into Wales .
Then I recall staying in a cottage on a hill side without running water nor electricity .
They seemed to be cold even in the summer unless you were in the kitchen by the fire .
There were dozens of old farming magazines and piles of tack .
Our bed seemed to fill up the entire room and there was a potty under the bed.
Grandma said that it was only to pee into .
Going to the loo meant going down the nettle fringed garden path to a privy .
My cousins were fond of ghost stories and scared me when I was a few years older ..
We spent a lot of time in the kitchen .It had old leather horse hair stuffed sofas , but they were always covered in things .
Grandma clucked about the untidiness ,but felt sorry for her sister in law-a painfully thin woman bronzed by the sun and completely worn out by her hard life .
There was a parlour with an upright piano that no one seemed to play and the room smelt musty .

I remember standing in a field with cows all around. I had wandered out of our garden. I was about 3. No fear. Dad and two other people came to my rescue. I can still picture it.

I remember taking a ‘five bob’note out of the insurance jug age three, running to the sweetie shop on the corner. Apparently I placed in on the counter top, & said, ‘sweets’!
I would not have known how much that was worth back in the day, or that I was stealing.

I have some oddments of memory which I discussed with my parents some years ago to put them in context. When I was 2 years old my appendix ruptured resulting in a stay in hospital, so these memories relate to that time. I remember being tied to my father’s tummy ( in a shawl or blanket) to go on his motorbike. Apparently this was to get me to hospital quickly, and was the GPs idea.. Another memory was being in a large cot and hearing my twin sister crying, but not being with me. Children were not allowed in the ward so she must have been in the waiting room. I also remember being given a toy - a small orange dog. I have no memory of being ill - only memories of the puzzling things. The memories are in vague pictures, perhaps retained due to the oddness of being away from my sister and in a strange place.

I was 2 years and 9 months when I became a big sister. I'd been sleeping at Granny's house, round the corner, when my aunt came into the room and told me I had a new little sister. Off we went and I was able (with help) to hold this beautiful little baby with a mass of brown curly hair. I gave her my teddy bear though this came back to me when she was given her own.
Next memory isn't so lovely: I was three when, climbing on granny's sofa, I fell and broke my arm. I vividly remember, as we were on the way back from the infirmary, there was a beautiful sunset over the mountains of the Island of Arran.

I'm 60 now and vividly remember being 5, lying on the living room floor, playing with my huge German She[pherd, Rex.

''Two sweets for you, one for me.'' Snuggled into his beautiful, thick fur and warm body. Kissing his gorgeous face.

I absolutely worshipped him, and he knew it!

Moving home, from a flat to a proper house, when I was about two and a half. I was worried that my mother would forget my lovely red coat in all the fuss, and was so relieved when she put it on me and buttoned it up. I remember the removal men coming in through the front door of our new house with the sofa, and my mother calling me to sit on the stairs out of the way.

My earliest memory is coming downstairs and seeing a beautiful white “bouncy” coach built dolls pram with a pink pillow and eiderdown and a dolly asleep. I was so excited. I can then remember pushing this pram, my pride and joy to my new house sometime after the first memory. I would have been 3 years old