What Makes Things Special?

I'm having difficulty recalling anything really special from childhood.
My maternal grandmother died when I was 9 and is remembered as being very stern. Did basic dressmaking for neighbours and was the first in the street to get a fridge. Maternal grandfather was more laid back, enjoyed a few too many bevvies and did as he was told. He came to live with us after granny dies and was a nice man.
Paternal grandparents were much older and as they had 11 children who also had lots of children, I don't think they knew who we were half the time. Lived in a really old house with an outside well, up a lane.

My parents existed together. Mother never went out, father did.... fond of a drink and a game of cards. He was the kindest of men and provided what warmth there was. Mother I think was depressed, certainly not social, and found a lot to criticize.
No family holidays or outings.

And yet I didn't really be aware of being unhappy, it was just how it was.
Not a lot of effort was put into making sure the children were happy (me and my dear brother).

But then I remember going with my friends to the park, 10 minutes away. Spending hours at the beach, a towel under our arm, no worries of health and safety. Taking the swings up as high as possible. And the white canvas plimsolls whitened and drying on the back yard wall in the sunshine.

I think that anything that gives a warm glow is special.
The birth of my son and his happiness and being friends as grownups.
My stepsons telling me they love me.
My lovely DH.
Special is emotions.

suebaily1 - my childhood was horrendous too but I have to say I can still pick out small pleasures from it. When my dad was sober and working (not very often) and he gave us kids half a crown to go to the sweet shop
Being taken to the toy shop one Christmas where you could choose a doll and the lady who owned the shop let you go through her books of doll patterns and you could choose an outfit for the doll. The memory of that doll on Christmas morning will stay with me. She was a crinoline lady with a beautiful blue and white dress and a big hat which tied under the chin. I can still see her blue eyes and pretty blonde curls. She was my pride and joy but when my younger sister had to go to hospital for an operation, she was so distressed every time we went to see her that I let her have my precious doll and the other kids in the ward ruined her

Aww, how lovely Jane10 - that will also go into your treasured memory file

I don't have many memories of my grandmother as she was in her late 70s when I was born but I do remember helping her off with her corset (she still wore that at that age!) and I was allowed one of her chocolates for helping. She was diabetic and we had all been warned not to touch her special chocolates (they were probably very expensive back then) so it felt really special that she gave me one of those treasured chocolates!

Absolutely HollyDaze. My Gran was the heroine of my happiest memories. Just so many small episodes of kindness, patience and fun. When my first GS was born a few years ago I determined to try to be as good a Gran as she was. I must be doing fairly well anyway as he just gave me his precious, hard won "well done" sticker from nursery!! I`ll have to keep it up!

The strange thing is, it seems that happy memories don't come from expensive things but more so from the simple pleasures in life - that is somehow very reassuring isn't it.

The toad! Yes, I always longed for that boy to get his comeuppance!

Coming home from school on a winters day. Mum would either have a baking potato in the embers of the fire for me, or make toast at the fire using a toasting fork. It wasn't that we didn't have an oven, she just did it for the novelty of it.

My mother reading to me, my brother and sister (and the dog). Sitting on the floor, by my father's chair, in front of the fire and him stroking my hair. We were not a very emotionally expressive family but that gesture has stayed with me ever since.

I have enjoyed reading the memories in this thread - some very poignant.
One of my most treasured memories was standing at the piano with my mum playing 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow' and me accompanying her. I do not have a good singing voice but I sang with much joy and mum made me feel very special. We used to do this several evenings a week after school. When mum went into a care home one of the most emotional things for me was browsing through her sheet music.

Reading through the posts, there are some lovely memories - I find myself smiling at your memories as I can imagine how lovely it must have been, it's strange isn't it how someone else's happy memory can make others smile

One bit I didn't smile at: the toad

Lots of happy memories, so I was very lucky although we weren't well off and never had a car.

My brother teaching me to ride my bike in the road.
Mum and I would cycle to her friend's farm each week. While the mums chatted I would play with mum's friend's boys( not always such fun, one put a toad down my back once) and I would collect the eggs. Each one would be wrapped carefully in newspaper and put into my bicycle basket for the ride home.

My first riding lesson when I was nine is something I will never forget. We'd moved around the Middle East for six years and it was my longed for dream to have a pony of my own when we returned to the UK but I knew it would be impossible because within two years we were off again.

Sparky was the chestnut pony belonging to a local farmer's daughter. Not exactly Champion the Wonder Horse but I'll never forget him.

My life at home was a bit bleak. I think my mother was depressed, looking back, after I was about five, things were fine until then but my father had an affair. It was never the same again. Great big house, four girls bringing themselves up, father never there. I took refuge in books. I lived in them all the time I was at home, as did my mother really. Happiness to me (apart from school) was going to the library armed with library tickets for all four of us, choosing just one each for my sisters, and using the other tickets for my escape. I can't get to sleep at night, no matter how late I get in, until I have read at least a chapter.

I go back there in my mind these days.

Sitting on my little chair in front of the old fashioned built up grate in our old kitchen, drawing, and finding caves and pathways in the the hot coals. With my granny.

And oh so many more. Nasturtiums and Sweet Williams I used to pick from the back garden and put in jamjars, dolls of all kinds, Christmas pillowcases..... [sigh] and

What a lovely memory, anno.

Anything that involved being out of the house. There was always a tribe of us. Conkers, frogspawn, making snow slides, jumping in iced- over puddles. making pea shooters out of thick stemmed cow parsley, hiding nests in tall dry grasses in the graveyard, kicking up autumn leaves, finding pheasant feathers, picking primroses ... that sort of thing. Bit of a tomboy.

During the war, my dad would sing a hymn to me as I fell asleep. I don't think I have ever again felt so safe, secure and well loved.

Mine is the same as posie's memories of my lovely paternal Grandmother.
All through my childhood my Mum kept me at arm's length. I didn't feel she or my father had any warmth or feelings for me. I was the eldest, they seemed a little, not much, warmer to my younger sister and brother. Anyway..just weeks before my Mum died she told me of my elder sister who had died at full term just a year before I was born. My parents had never spoken of her after her stillbirth. We, Mum and I, visited the baby's grave just a fortnight before she died. She had never been there before. My lovely Gran was brilliant, I would have loved her to have met my DD but sadly she died at 69.

One happy memory is sitting in front of a roaring coal fire in winter, learning to knit with my mum. I was six and had been given rainbow-coloured wool and needles for Christmas. I had two younger sisters and my new baby brother and mum always seemed to be busy doing other things, so those moments of her time stand out in my memory.

I know this sounds pathetic but I don't have any just a very difficult childhood- sadly its not good for everyone.

Nothing that went well at school? A feeling of happiness when out with your friends and, say, fishing for sticklebacks?

I had quite a happy childhood but the one memory that stands out (at this present moment in time) is being on a country lane with my mum and picking blackberries - just wish I knew why that memory is jumping out!

Oh and another: we had a very, very big fish pond (or lake as the council called it lol) in our back garden and it had a small bridge over the middle. I vividly remember my Dad running around the garden and over the bridge whilst pushing the wheelbarrow - with me in it (with the inevitable, but fake, threat of toppling the barrow over the side of bridge whilst he 'fought to regain control of it)

Me too suebailey1, but now I enjoy some of the things I missed growing up - watching the local children playing in the fields next to my house and hearing their laughter is especially healing. When we had all that snow a couple of years ago I watched them tobogganing down the hill and we even had a snowball fight, which left me crying with laughter (and very wet and very cold!)

What made mine special was in the long holidays waking up to brilliant sunshine, hearing friends already playing out and rushing to get out to join them. Then all day having fun playing, chatting to the mum's sat out, taking babies for a walk in their coach built prams and as I got older, watching the boys play cricket and football. Blissful times and still friends with those I grew up with.

I know this sounds pathetic but I don't have any just a very difficult childhood- sadly its not good for everyone.