Your earliest memory

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 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!!

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

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.

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".

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

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!

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.

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 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!

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 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 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.

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 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!

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

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.

Just about remember running out of the back gate which was open and towards a very busy road where a lorry pulled up just in time. Aged about 3 I think.g

I have two and I'm not sure which was first. I would have been about 2 or 3.

First was being taken to hospital in an ambulance, my mother was climbing into the ambulance and over her shoulder I could see my gran standing at the front door with my older sister. I can remember the ward I was taken to and standing crying in the cot.

Second was being taken to Mass by my father, the church was full and he had to stand through the mass with me in his arms. I can remember looking round at all the people crowded round us.

I was about 2. My wonderful Dad was walking up and down the landing, nursing me, gently and rhythmically tapping my back while singing the hymn 'yield not to temptation' to me quietly, obviously trying to get me to sleep. I can even remember the wallpaper. He died when I was 21, my mum having died 7 years earlier. Oh how I miss them both.

Welsh Poppy so sorry you lost both parents while you were still so young.

The earliest memory I can date with certainty is breaking my arm arm when I was two and a half. I was in the garden on my own, and fell over, banging my arm on on the edging stones at the side of the path. I remember crying and looking up at the window, wondering why no-one was there to help me instantly. I also remember being wrapped in a blanket while we waited for an ambulance to arrive, and looking into the ambulance when the back doors were opened. One more memory of that event is of entering the hospital - walking up the steps just ahead of me was a child whose leg looked like a dog had taken a big chunk out of it.

From the age of three onwards I have lots of memories.

In fact I think I have a hazy memory of something from a much younger age (18 months), but will concede that it is unlikely, and might be a false memory.

I was a baby in my mother's arms when she stood with other female family members in the porch at the home of my aunt. The drone of bomber planes could be heard in the night sky. The planes were flying towards Liverpool.
My grandparents had airmen billited with them. Some were Free French Air Force. As a baby, young child I was given chocolate and occasionally
an orange by the airmen.

I was 2...remember 2 things..which mum and dad could never understand as I was so young. One is horrible,to me now..and one is funny. Horrible one, climbed into my papa's coffin and tried to wake him up! When coffins were in the house. I wakened up went downstairs and seen the big box and my papa dad caught me tring to climb in......😱😱😱😱😱😱😱🥺 scared the Bejus out of me now but I can remember it.... the other was trying to clean the dog's teeth with toothpaste...dad said poor dog was foaming at the mouth and they thought it was having a fit! Irony was it wasn't even our dog but friends of my parents! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣. Psdog was fine...😅

granjan66

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

Ahh! I hope you have many happy memories of her 🫂