Memories of the past

I too lived with my maternal grandparents (on and off!) for the first four years of my life and I can remember the layout of the house, the swing in the garden, the birdbath ( now mine!!) the large, to me, kitchen table, the ideal boiler, in fact nearly every nook and cranny. My younger uncle's toy milk float making an ideal pram for my teddy, my Granny making a dolls bed out of a shoe box. It's amazing what can be remembered 70 years along the line!!!

I am welsh too Anniebach and remember Aberfan vividly although I was only 11 at the time. We were playing outside and someone came out and said what was happening and I remember watching it on the tele and being aware of how momentous it was. I remember my grandmothers house and helping her turn the mangle in the garden when she did the weeks washing and her moving to a brand new council house when I was older and my grandfather coming home from the steel works with the tin can he carried his tea in. Also my dad taking me to the local shop for chocolate on a Friday when he finished work chocolate was a very big treat we didn't have a lot of money. No central heating, ice on the inside of the bedroom windows in the winter and freezing cold Lino on the floor. My brother being born when I was 7 and being taken to see him by the midwife( he was delivered at home) and me crying and telling them to take him back! My grandmother, who had more money than us bought me a big silver cross pram and a baby doll so I could push my pram when my mother took him out in his.

I also remember having my tonsils out when I was nine.
I got an infection afterwards and had to stay in for a few more days. No parents were allowed to visit at all until the day they took you home.
My brother must have been 4 weeks old, and I can remember my mother coming to the outside window of the ward, with him in the pram and one of my sisters who was aged 3 sitting ontop of the pram.She had pushed that pram about two miles to see me through that window and then pushed it the two miles back home.
There were toddlers in cots down the middle of ward who cried for their mothers all day.
Thank goodness this does not happen today.

I can still remember my first childhood home, which was my grandparent's house.We lived there until I was almost five and due to start school.
I can remember every room, even the colours they were painted. There was a huge backgarden where my sister and I played making daisy chains on the lawn. My grandfather seemed to grow loads of flowers including sweet peas on a climbing frame.I used to play with two of the neighbours children who were both boys of my age. Their names were David and Leslie, and somehow I still think of them as my first boyfriends!.David also lived with his grandparents and his granda always addressed us as ''The young lady and gentleman''.
This house came up for sale about twenty odd years ago and I wanted to buy it but DH was not keen on moving.I often wonder who lives there now, and hope they are as happy in it as I was, 65 years ago.

Yes I can remember having my tonsils and adenoids out aged 6. My experience was roughly the same as yours anno, trying to swallow jelly and not being able to, lots of blood! 'brisk!' nurses, and the feeling of being smothered while being put under!! The hospital for whatever reason decided to take me and another little girl home in an ambulance during the morning without informing our parents!!!! We were to be collected by them in the afternoon (I expect they needed the beds!) but weren't told of the change of plan! Luckily my S.Father was at home, but my mother was out shopping and I can remember sitting on my S.F lap sobbing till my mother appeared! The other child's parents were both out and she was left in their garden shed with an accompanying nurse to wait for someone to come home!!!!! Even in 1949 this was unacceptable, and I know the s....t hit the fan from both families! I don't know what the outcome was- nothing I suspect!!!

Bad memories. My younger sister - not quite 4 - and I were sent to have our tonsils out out together. However, she got an infection and we were kept there on our own when all the other children went home. Parents were not encouraged to visit in those days. We both believe that this experience left a mark on our lives.To this day I believe that I was sent to keep my sister company as I was sure I hadn't had any throat problems though I knew she had.

I remember going to the hospital, aged 5, to have my tonsils out. We were sitting waiting, and someone was wheeled past, asleep, on a stretcher, and I cried to go home. I was consoled by being told that when it was my turn I`d be given a balloon to blow up, but wasn`t happy to find it was a mask for the anaesthetic! Then I remember the journey back home the same day, in an ambulance, coughing up blood into a kidney bowl, then having to go to bed in the front room for a few days.

I remember very little about my childhood, don't think it was particularly happy or sad. However, I do find very clear snippets come back to me from time to time. I can remember our house, garden, route to school, Wanstead flats (part of Epping forest) etc. very clearly, can see those in detail. I seem to remember places rather than events.

I too remember when my mother married again in 1947 when I was four. (My father was killed five weeks before I was born) I remember being stood up on the pew by my Granny so that I could see better! I can also remember being miffed at not going away with them, as they had always taken me everywhere with them, well, nearly always!! but not this time!!!!
I remember my elder uncle's wedding when I was six and I was a bridesmaid. I remember at the reception being kissed by a large red faced man, (a kiss for the little bridesmaid!) and being rather alarmed!!!!

My father was killed in WW2, and one of my earliest memories is of being a bridesmaid when my mother married again, when I was 3. I remember the photos being taken, and at the reception, me and the other "small" bridesmaid, Elaine Booth, she was 6, chasing each other around, in and out of the church hall.
My stepfather was a coal miner, and I remember seeing the miners coming home from work with their black faces, maybe there weren`t any showers at Elsecar pit?

It's sad isn't it whitewave, at 61 you'd think I would have got over it, but I still find myself trying to please. Both my parents are still alive and would be horrified if I said anything - we were actively discouraged from showing emotion and on the odd occasion (when I was desperate for support) I did, I was told 'we can't cope with this'.

I did ask my children and to my sorrow my DD said her childhood was miserable, my DS said his was wonderful, ho hum , so wished I hadn't!

Never mind, I'll one day grow a thicker skin, I hope!

loop yes I had a father who didn't like me - but after a bad breakdown in my 50's I have come to terms with his treatment and have left it behind now. It is amazing how one's parents have so much influence on your life.
When I was having counseling I wondered what my children thought of me and he said simply "ask them" but I never have.

I remember coming last in everything on school sports day -I even got stuck under a pegged down tarpaulin-I was badly claustrophobic and just thinking about it makes me sweat. My mother was furious because I'd 'shown her up in front of everyone'.
I definitely remember 'popping' wallpaper-and being punished.
Holidays in Highcliffe, saving all my pocket money for a riding lesson in the New Forest, buying a paperback book to read on holiday (always pony stories, Ruby Ferguson or Josephine Pullein -Thompson)
Aberfan- seeing it on the television and being sent out the room when neighbour's son (who worked for the Forestry Commission and was one of the many who worked to find survivors) visited us.
I'm not sure I had many really happy memories, I was always trying desperately to please my mother who wanted the perfect family.

Yes you're right whitewave, it is the odds and ends that remain firmly in your memory! Learning to ride a bike, learning to swim, winning the batton relay on sports day! failing my 11+!! (not quite such a happy memory!! but we got over it!!)

It is funny really but it is largely the very simple things that people remember isn't it?

I too can remember happy holidays in Cornwall when I was about 6 or 7. After my Granny was widowed we took her with us, and they were very happy times. I can remember my mother and me going with my S-father when he visited Farms on business, and picnicking on the Berkshire downs, finding a skylarks nest and excitedly showing it to my parents who were genuinely impressed!! Picking cowslips, primroses and of course blackberrying. Many, many happy memories.

My happiest memories are full of sun and smells. The one I go back to time and time again is walking from a village in Cornwall through the fields to the beach and the warm honey smell of the gorse, open-toed sandels and brown legs. Also sitting up in a sprung and feathered bed looking out of the window watching the steam train on its way to Okehampton.

Going to the local village show and looking at all the eggs and all the different colours - some so brown they were nearly black. The smell of the Co-op that sold everything. The local cinema with double seats at the back (how rude) The animal market at the back of the pub. The village fete in the local park. Going as something old and something new with my cousin - I was something new as I was the youngest, my cousin wore a Victorian dress owned my our maternal grandmother.

anniebach so sorry for your hurtful memories. I am Welsh and remember so well the disaster of which you write. I lived in Cardiff at the time and some of my family were involved in the recovery operation. I can remember my father weeping with emotion at the scale and sadness of the tragedy.
All my family are from the Rhodda.
I am sending you healing thoughts and hope you can find some little thing pre tragedy that you can focus on. .

Reading these posts I realise how lucky I was to have such a happy childhood after a bit of a tricky start! My earliest memory was the Day Nursery that I went to at the age of two enabling my war widow mother to work full time. After that I remember odds and ends of living with my grandparents and other places, before the quite clear memory of the dreadful winter of 1946/7, when we were living one room, of the COLD as there was little in the way of heat (things were harder after the war than during it, so they tell me) and the snow drifts that were a lot taller than me! Help was at hand though as in the April of that year my mother remarried a fantastic man, who was both a wonderful husband to her and an equally wonderful father to me.
Oh my goodness, I certainly remember Aberfan and the horror and disbelief at seeing this unspeakable tragedy unfold. I can only imagine the awfulness of living through it.
Maywalk, I think to write down your memories of your childhood and early adult life is a fantastic thing to do. ethelbags, how sad is your memory of your grandmother. My own maternal grandmother was greatly loved so it's hard to imagine how wretched it must have been to have a granny who actively hated you.

Elizabethan serenade reminds me of the thrashing I got from my grannie for just speaking or being in her way. she hated me

I will be 85 in May and my memories of the first 20 years of my life are in the book I wrote that has gone worldwide. It tells of me being born during the Great Depression and being put in a "Sisters of Mercy" home for nearly 7 years. These so called "Sisters of Mercy" WERE NOT merciful, in fact they were frustrated bitches with how they dealt out punishment for nothing at all. I was entrusted to them by my parents because when I was born I got double pnuemonia and in those years there was NO such thing as the NHS and there was NO work about to pay for treatment especially in my case because the illness affected my eyes and I had to wear a patch over my GOOD eye for 10years.
The book takes the reader through the war years when we were bombed out twice in the London Blitz and machine gunned twice before becoming an evacuee.
I have many memories from the war years that I have recorded on my website.

I will look out for that kate

It looks like my kind of show Katy.

Talking of good shows if you like the songs and dancing of Michael Jackson then there is a young lad called Ben who is touring the country with his MJ Tribute show. It was so good that we have booked to see it again next year.

Kate - There is a musical on in the West End at the moment called Sunny Afternoon, which is the story of the Kinks. It has been receiving great reviews. We are hoping to go at some point. On the adverts it says 'original story by Ray Davies' and obviously it is all Kinks music. I have seen excerpts and it looks brilliant

When I got to the age of 70 my son said that if he got me a computer and he taught me how to use it would I write down all the tales from my life which takes in being bombed out twice during the London Blitz.
I decided to write about the first 20 years of my life and get it printed with all proceeds going to my local childrens hospice. It did so well I then decided to get a website put up which would help children and students with their WW2 history.
That too took off and I can honestly say that it has helped to keep me going because I am now in my 84th year and there are still folks contacting me for my book and the website address.
I have a very good memory and it was very therapeutic for me to write everything down and helped me come to terms with some VERY disturbing things that have happened in the past.