Evocative sights and smells

If ever I smell whatever sort of polish it is that they used on the wooden floors at school gives me that start-of-a-new-term frisson.

The smell of freshly washed clothes being ironed reminds me of my mother. (Not a smell experienced in my house unless the ironing fairy has been!)

Lavender is my grandmother, Tabac aftershave my FiL, and the smell of a small, sweaty little boy takes me back to being a young mum.

- “...more fragile but more enduring, more unsubstantial, more persistent, more faithful, the smell and flavour are still long...,.and bear unfaltering, in their almost impalpable droplet, the immense edifice of memory”

Good old Proust.

Frangipani, I spent part of my childhood in the Far East and the smell of frangipani transports right back there.

Whenever I walk past a conifer hedge I feel as if I am 5 years old and staying at my aunts house in the New Forest, and then there is the sight and smell of the heather. Happy days!

Slightly off subject, but the gentle, relaxing sound of grass being mowed with a manual lawnmower.

The smell and the sound of a coal fire, the fire in the back room was the only heat in the house.
The smell of Murray mints reminds me of my nan, she would always have one or two loose in the handbag that hardly ever left her side.
Pipe tobacco, which you don't often smell these days. Dear dad loved his pipe.

Tar - I can remember the roads near us being tarred and the sight of a steam roller lumbering down the road a few days later to smooth it out. That steam roller seemed so exciting to us as kids.

Moth balls. Cigar smoke and pipe tobacco. Roasting coffee. Old Spice. Beer froth. Sizzling bacon, fish and chip shops...

KatyK yes, tar! On a hot day, when little hands can prod the warm tar bubbles at the edge of the road [there were hardly any cars on our road so it was fairly safe.]And ditto for the pipe tobacco that my Grandad smoked, it smelled wonderful. Candles in church. Roses in the garden, although my own roses now hardly have any perfume at all sadly.Mown grass on a warm day.The salty tang of the sea.

The smell of the Yorkshire puddings in the oven as the Billy Cotton Band show signature tune is playing on the radio.

The songs 'Two Little Boys' Rolf Harris and Elvis's 'Suspicious Minds' still make me feel nauseous as they were very popular just as I was suffering terrible morning sickness in my first pregnancy.
I can be chatting away not aware that either of them are being played on the radio then become aware of a nauseous feeling and there on the radio is one of those tunes. I would not have liked them even if they didn't make me sick

The smell of sunlight on old creosoted fences. The voice of Frank Philips (wartime and later BBC newsreader). The smell of the warm air issuing from the tunnel on the Northern Line - it smelled different from the other lines somehow! The tune In Party Mood (Jack Strachey) that introduced Housewives' Choice...

School dinners sometimes -spam fritters followed by gypsy tart (whatever
was in it we never knew, but it was great!) and now and then,thick, sweet semolina.

The scent of a new-born baby's skin.

Honeysuckle. I used to wear Avon Honeysuckle perfume. Now I have honeysuckle in the garden and when I smell it on summer evenings I'm transported back to the seventies.

* The smell of the almond paste that I used to use in my scrap books.
* Johnsons baby powder and Farleys' rusks.
* The general smell of overbooked cabbage as I walked back from Sunday school.

My sister and I were talking about evocative smells and both agreed on the aroma of a box hedge which takes us straight back to our granny's garden in Fife where the whole large garden was edged with these little hedges.

Oh and St Bruno tobacco. If I smell that, I can virtually see my father sitting on my sofa with his pipe, a book and one of my cats.

The smell of my school blazer in summertime
The smell of may trees as I walked home from school.
Newly mown grass as my Dad pushed the lawnmower on a summer evening when I was in bed
Lavender furniture polish
Horses - dust and leather
Boarding school - fishy smell on Fridays and steamed chocolate pudding on Wednesdays
Tar & coal
Mac the milkman with Blackie his horse clunking down the road

I could go on.............

Harrigran that memory brought a tear to my eye. The Sunday lunch was always followed by home made rice pud. Dad and I took it on turns to have the 'skin' off the top.

The smell of new leather vividly reminds me of my new satchel when I went to grammar school. Ferreting around in it, looking for books, pens, etc. it had a strong smell for ages.
Who can forget the smell of wet gaberdine macs hanging in the school cloakroom on a wet day?
And one whiff of Johnsons baby powder and I'm a new mum again.!
I think smells are tremendously evocative. Perfumes such as Coty L'Aimant take me back to going to dances wearing a pretty dress...

School dinners always smelled of mince and cabbage regardless of what was on the menu!
I say menu, but we didn't have a choice in those days. Take it or leave it!

mrsmopp I haven't smelt Coty L'Aimant for years, I don't know if it is still around but it would also take me back to my teens and early twenties. Was it ever available as a cream perfume with a plastic "feather" applicator or was that something else?

The Perfume Shop has it. Amazon has it.
I was amazed when I checked as I thought it was long gone! Off to perfume shop tomorrow just for a whiff of it!