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Win the chance to have your family tree researched and recorded - worth £150 *NOW CLOSED*

(518 Posts)
LauraGransnet (GNHQ) Thu 06-Sept-18 09:25:57

Who do YOU think you are? Who were your ancestors? How did they earn a living? Where did they live? Discover the answers to these questions in our competition with Odyssey Family Tree Research Services. Four lucky winners will have their family tree researched and recorded as far back as possible in relation to one parent's lineage.

More details on the prize HERE and T&Cs HERE. We will pick a winner after 11am on 4 October.

To enter simply tell us... What's your favourite childhood memory?

You must be a registered Gransnet user to enter. Sign up to Gransnet HERE if you haven't done so already.

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Blinko Sat 08-Sept-18 13:30:43

My grandfather was one of eight siblings, the eldest boy child. On Sundays he and I would go off dressed in our best to visit one or another of his brothers and sisters. Sometimes we walked but most times we went by bus. That was when I was growing up in the early 1950s. To this day, I still have lunch with the granddaughter of one of his sisters and a daughter (now aged 91) of another sister. I often feel those visits were like the glue that held the family together over all the years. Wonderful memories!

kgnw28225 Sat 08-Sept-18 13:23:37

Sitting in the street bursting tar bubbles with the other kids. It was so hot then,

myrtle4me Sat 08-Sept-18 11:58:35

picking blackberries with my Nan, then watching her make blackberry jelly jam

Holidayenthusiast Sat 08-Sept-18 11:53:01

My most treasured memory is sitting on my Dad's knee as we played 'Horsey, horsey' or 'This little piggy'.
I always felt so loved and so safe.

Tidusmc Sat 08-Sept-18 11:09:29

Getting the 10pm Saturday night train at Victoria Station in Manchester to catch the Belfast ferry from Holyhead. My dad having his last pint in the bar at the station and me sitting outside the door with my lemonade and crisps, so he could see me. The walk along the dockside up to the ferry with other families, pushing prams and carrying suitcases. The walk up the wooden gangplank onto a giant ship. I was heading off for the school holidays to stay with my Nannie. It's all so different now.

Byrdie Sat 08-Sept-18 10:38:00

So many to choose... happy memories. Christmas and summers with my grandparents. My grandad taught me to play many of the classic board games and we played endlessly over the years. I remember i was very proud when I finally beat my grandad.

Penguin1 Sat 08-Sept-18 10:26:22

Staying at my grandma’s house and eating her enormous dinner-plate sized Yorkshire puddings!

WeeMadArthur Sat 08-Sept-18 10:20:14

My favourite childhood memory is a bit fuzzy as I was so young, but it was a very sunny day on the beach, I was riding a donkey, I can still remember the smell of the donkey and the leather from the reins, and I was also admiring my lovely red patent sandals.

Humbertbear Sat 08-Sept-18 09:57:50

We were watching the coronation on a tiny television and my dad brought my mother and baby sister home from Hospital. My sister only weighed 5lbs 4 oz and I can remember her lying on an armchair. She was thinly, like a doll. My mother had obviously explained to me about breast feeding because I went into the bedroom to watch and came running out shouting ‘it’s working,’ I’ve never lived it down.

JonFlorrie Sat 08-Sept-18 09:48:18

Living on RAF camps as a child during the sixties gave opportunities for illicit playing in old air raid shelters and climbing grass covered hangars; being pulled on my roller skates by my sister on her bike along the bumpy cement runway; walking to the village school every day along a country lane and through the village and stopping off at the blacksmith's shop to watch him work.

kittykomp Sat 08-Sept-18 09:20:07

playing out in the woods

Bopeep14 Sat 08-Sept-18 08:58:44

My favourite memory from my child hood was lying in bed on christmas eve listening for father christmas sleigh bells. Christmas was such a magical time for me when i was a child because my dad was home he worked away a lot but always managed to be home for christmas.

grandmaz Sat 08-Sept-18 08:49:48

Collecting fresh warm hens eggs from their little straw beds in the henhouse, when I visited a neighbour...I was probably about four years old...and found this so exciting! Pushing my hand gently into the straw, stretching my fingers and then finding the lovely warm little eggs made me feel so happy!

albertina Sat 08-Sept-18 08:20:14

The great excitement I used to feel, aged about five, when my much older brother came home from University. He made life so much fun. I couldn't sleep or eat for the week before he arrived.

Suema Sat 08-Sept-18 08:01:28

Friday night when dad came home from work. He worked very hard in a factory and often came home late, tired and bad tempered. But on Fridays, after getting his pay packet, he always came home with a bar of Caramac chocolate (horribly sweet and sickly but delicious), a Bunty for me and an Eagle for my brother. Yes, he did love us really!

stoolballgirl Sat 08-Sept-18 07:54:29

as a child our whole family would go to Camber Sands one Sunday in the year. There would be about 25 to 30 of us, mum, dad, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents etc. We would set up a long line of windbreaks and picnic blankets, play rounders, fly kites, paddle, ride the donkeys and have ice creams. I have such happy memories of those times!

mariajane1983 Sat 08-Sept-18 05:25:47

Spending christmas days with my famiky and nana joiningnus for dinner, was a great day and loved having her there with us to celebrate it, especially the year i got a walkman and felt on top of the world that year until i broke it.

kaizen99 Sat 08-Sept-18 01:37:40

The way my mum managed my first day at school was superb! I shall always remember it.

cherylann2461 Fri 07-Sept-18 23:11:24

living in Cornwall as a child i have many memories but above all spending long days on the beach and rolling down the sand dunes. x

Granny23 Fri 07-Sept-18 22:36:24

One snowy winter my Dad made a long sledge for my sister and me. It was so long that we managed to squeeze the two of us and the five other small children who lived in the village, all on at once. My Dad set off at a run along a farm track and every so often he jerked the sledge so that the last child flipped off into the soft snow. He carried on until I was the only one left on, then he turned round, with feigned surprise, wondering where all the others had gone.

Such fun! I met one of the other children recently and they also remembered this sleigh ride, nearly 70 years ago.

pinkjj27 Fri 07-Sept-18 21:08:10

Playing an angel in the school nativity when I was 5. I had a beautiful dress, golden wings and a glittering Halo. All the other angels just wore white sheets no wings or halos. I got a speaking part and got to sing a solo. I have been a little angel ever since.

RachDayxx Fri 07-Sept-18 20:04:22

Family trips to the seaside, burying dad in the sand and eating chips out of newspaper on the harbour wall

Bobdoesit Fri 07-Sept-18 18:52:39

Visiting my granny Daisy in Buckinghamshire which was something of a foreign country to me – or so it seemed at the time! Daisy lived in a townhouse (not that it would have been called that then) in the centre of Winslow while we resided in a farm workers cottage in the middle of nowhere. Granny seemed very wealthy to me, and every visit was exciting. She had a ‘spotty dog’, which I now know was a Dalmatian, she also had a budgerigar who had the freedom of the house which would prove to be his undoing. I have so many happy memories of those days its difficult to pick just one, but I suppose my favourite has to be discovering two paper dolls in one of her magazines. How I loved sitting in front of the fire cutting out 'Nora and Tilly' and their lovely outfits. It took me many a long year to find them again, but thanks to the Internet I now have three 1950s Woman and Home magazines, and there they are. Discovering them was like finding long lost friends. I could go on, but as you ask for just one favourite memory I had best stop there, oh and if you are wondering about the budgerigar – granny sat on him!

ninathenana Fri 07-Sept-18 18:45:50

Riding my bike to go and meet dad on his way home from work. He had to cross a railway line via a pedestrian crossing, I would wait on "my" side and we would ride the rest of the way home together discussing our days.

jenpax Fri 07-Sept-18 17:44:50

One year we went to Paris for Christmas, I must have been 7 or 8 and it snowed❄️☃️?
I remember running down a boulevard and seeing lots of sparkly lights and snow flakes, and my mother treated me to a red fur muff and beret in one of the shops which was so beautiful and kept me toasty warm. It was a magical holiday for me.