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Being able to ride my pony with best friend. We would meet and go off for the day in summer school holidays with packed lunch consisting of cheese and tomato sandwich, a “penguin” (chocolate bar) plus a drink in a bottle, all carried in a panier. We didn’tknow, or care, where we were, hadn’t a clue. The freedom of exploring new places, lovely rides through woodland, across field via the headland, in hot sultry summer days. Back before it got dark. Absolute freedom.

My favourite memory is from living on a fruit farm, being able to just help ourselves to whatever fruit we fancied, then going in for dinner and having copious amounts of fresh vegetables from my dad's garden, he taught me so much about growing things that I've never forgotten, thanks dad.

Bonfire night: for months unwanted trees/wood/old furniture etc would be stashed in gardens. Suddenly, as if by magic, the day before bonfire night the wooden booty would appear in designated host garden and magically transform itself into a bonfire-shape, surrounded by planks of wood strung across barrels to form temporary seating. Immediately after school on bonfire night the magic started: extended families and neighbours gathered, fireworks fizzled in the dark sky whilst we little ones watched in awe, happily munching on the parkin, pies and peas, bonfire-baked jacket potatoes, as well as toffee apples and treacle/plot toffee.... Slowly, as the bonfire burned, our seating would disappear onto the fire, and as our seating disappeared so too would the children to bed - youngest first, obviously. Eventually with only embers left, it was time for the adults to go home too. Another year gone.......!

My favourite childhood memories are at the weekends when me my Mum, Dad and two older sisters would all go out for the day on a Saturday and Sometimes Sunday aswell to watch my Dad play cricket. Often we would go to an away match and me, my sisters and many other children would go off together to explore and we would walk miles. On one occasion we came across a mansion for sale and walked all around the grounds which had a lake and extremely large plants I remember feeling tiny. We had so many adventures and they were wonderful times.

Cuddling up on Mum’s knee to listen to the Home service broadcast of ‘Listen With Mother’. I can still hear the presenter’s voice chanting “are you sitting comfortably? Then let’s begin......”. I would always reply, “I am, but Mummy isn’t”! Then, if I was lucky, my Mum would read my favourite poem “You are Old Father William”, by Lewis Carroll I think. The last line always made me giggle, ‘Be off, or I’ll kick you downstairs’!

my nan telling me bedtime stories of her childhood in the early 1900's

Walking my first day to school with my Mum. I can still feel her hand round mine. Feeling excited and nervous, but secure and loved.

Sitting on my nan’s lawn making daisy chains

Sitting on my Grandad’s knee, aged about 3. He used to
help me eat my breakfast egg, soft boiled and delicious!
Sadly, he died when I was only 4 years old. Maybe that it why I remember these precious moments.

During the war, playing in bombed out houses with my best friend Rosie. This was our Pre-School Play. We are still friends and still giggling like four year olds. As Rod says she is in my heart and in my soul I only have to think of her and I am right back there in Cardiff.

Sitting very sedately, with my handbag perfectly placed on my lap, in the carriage of the little train that round in the fairground on Southsea Common. I must have only been about three, 1950 (!) and Grandma, who lived in Portsmouth hired a car and chauffer for us. Wonderful - and I still have a black and white photograph of it.

Going to Cleethorpes for a day out and my dad driving over an old hump bridge in Brigg and making my tummy turn over! The centre of Brigg is now for pedestrians only. He did it every time but it was always a shock. I remember Dad, Grandad and an Uncle in the front with my brother and a cousin on their laps. My Grandma, Mum, Aunty and me and my sister in the back.
All with no seatbelts!
We were always warm and cosy and had 'sing songs' on the way there singing 'Oh we do like to be beside the seaside' and 'We're all going on a summer holiday'.
On the way home we always fell asleep as we had made sand castles and paddled in the sea; sometimes walking, what seemed like miles, to get to the edge of the water if the tide had turned! We always took a picnic which we ate on the beach (crisp sandwiches were a favourite) and we had orange squash and my parents had tea from a flask. Before we went home we shared bags of hot chips, with lots of salt spilling over the sides and splashes of vinegar which made the newspaper all soggy.
Great trip down memory lane thanks

Having an old Penney and buying 4 black jacks or fruit salad sweets!

Staying with my granny along with my cousin Robin. Neither of us had siblings that were near in age and we lived 200 miles apart. Granny lived roughly in the middle!
Granny was extremely laid back and had a very large and exciting garden. The kitchen garden and orchard were full of yummy fruits and vegetables, there was a goldfish pond ,an Italian sunken garden and lots of places for making dens and playing hide and seek.
We all slept outside in hammocks during the summer and a tame robin came in through the French doors to be fed crumbs.
In winter she always treated us to a theatre visit and let us play on the escalators in the underground.
There were no rules at granny’s just fun!

We lived in Gkasgow in a ground floor tenement. All the kids got their parents to throw pieces ( sandwiches) wrapped in the paper the bread came in over the window for them to catch for their lunch. Being ground floor was a drawback here so my mum's friend who lived three floors up used to make mine and throw it from her window,it was so exciting.
They're is even a song about throwing pieces from windows and the problems it caused when multi stori flats were built.
I just remember the kindness of our neighbour.

I remember running around with friends and climbing trees. The best memories

Standing on a wall watching a parade of soldiers march by. It must have been at the end of the war.

My favourite memory was the family parties at my Aunty Alice's. My cousins would look after me as I was the youngest cousin, then all the adults would come home from the local pub in a happy mood, put the record player on and start a party, with jars out. One night we danced that much that the wooden floor bounced so much that the 50's fireplace came away from the wall!!! Great memories.

I grew up with my paternal grandparents in the 1950's, they were in their 50's - but seemed much older, like many of their generation.

Even though we lived in a 'good area' of the town, we didn't have any 'hot running water' - just a cold tap over a slopstone sink in the kitchen and another identical one in the 'wash-house' outside. Laundry was done, once a week, in the wash-house on a Monday morning - with grandad lighting a fire under the 'copper boiler' before he went out to work - so that nan would have hot water to do the laundry!

As it wasn't very long after the war, they still kept hens - and a cockerel - in the back yard, so plenty of fresh eggs, with the added benefit of the occasional 'one for the pot' when they stopped laying.

The cockerel - Georgie - was scary and loved to torment me. We had an outside toilet, and he would chase me down the yard. I was so scared of him that I would lock myself in the toilet and scream for my nan to come and fetch me back. She only had to 'flap her pinny at him' for him to scuttle away squawking, as if to say 'I'll get her next time!'.

I've been doing my Family Tree for quite a few years, but have now hit a brickwall with one particular ancestor and I'd love to be able to find out exactly where he was born and his marriage record - I have details of his parents. He died in India and I have the record of his son being born and baptised there :-D.

Walking along the beach and picking up shells

going to butlins with my grandparents every year it was so special

Driving past an isolated cottage near the old A1 with my father muttering 'the old dragons at Dragon Cottage'. Seems it used to be the Dragon Inn and the old dragons were his estranged aunts with whom he'd had no contact since his Grandfather died in about 1925. I never plucked up courage to go and knock on the door once I could drive in 1964

Helping my adored grandfather in his rose garden and listening to him talking of his childhood on Anglesey, we were living in South Wales so Anglesey seemed another country to me , and being so proud when he named a rose after me.

Going on the only family holiday we had to Wales and finding a really large crab with only one pincer.

Holidaying in Swanage and making sandcastles on the beach, my granny lived there and we visited regularly - I love the photos of myself in a little bonnet and ruched swimming costume.