Vocal Voices

Since it's been commented on, yes, my memory is pretty good.
I remember even at grammar school, a friend was amazed that I remembered our (joint) first day at primary school - I was amazed that she didn't

The first thing I remember that's definitely not something I was told, and later assumed I remembered, is my kitten.
One day my mum and I walked into town, and she stopped outside a little newsagents, with one of those wire-caged notice boards outside, where people could put postcards with items for sale, offers to do ironing, etc.
I clearly remember us standing there, me stretching a little to hold her hand, whilst she read, and being frustrated that I didn't know what the words said.
Then we went inside, and she talked very quietly to the lady behind the counter.

A few days later it was my birthday. My dad arrived home from work on his motorbike and walked in with a cardboard box, which they both gave me. I opened it, and inside was a tiny black kitten with a white chest (I'll find a pic to scan).
That was my 2nd birthday
We grew up together, she died when I was 23...

I also know that once that happened, I recognised and understood the word kitten from the postcard

I remember sitting in a puddle, playing mud pies, with the little boy from up the road - I was about 18 months old apparently

I also very clearly remember the day we moved from our tiny cramped flat into the house we had until I grew up - my sister was a very small baby so I would have been barely 3 years old I also clearly remember the night she was born - she was being born at home so Aunty Rose took me to the circus to get me out of the way - they had tigers and a tightrope walker

My mum's first memory was of standing in her cot and getting covered in plaster from the ceiling when the next door street was bombed!

Not sure which is my earliest memory out of these but I do have a very retentive memory.

One thing I clearly remember is being left at home with my Dad while my Mom went into town, it must've been on a Saturday morning because he was home. I had terrible earache but couldn't tell him what was wrong so I must've been very young. I remember him holding me while he walked around the living room, I held a towel or cloth over my ear and was crying. After Mom got home, I remember having a home visit from the family GP.

I think I was about 3 when my Mom's cousin got married. I remember getting ready and then sitting with my Dad on the back doorstep. He'd seen a rat in the garden, it was at the end of the path and he was aiming his air rifle at it. I remember sitting there with him and making a gun shape out of my hands so that I could shoot it too.

Another I remember is going to see my sister play in the school orchestra with my Mom one evening. We sat at the back and I stood on my seat and conducted...and made a fair bit of noise, shouting my sister. I used to call her 'dear' as I couldn't say her name and that was what I was shouting. I was dragged the 2 miles home at the interval - and was never taken to see the orchestra ever again.

I have memories of going into Birmingham with my Mom and sister so that Julie could take a music exam. We went into an old building and had to climb up several floors of creaky narrow stairs.

I remember going to playgroup at the church hall, and have lots of memories of nursery school.

Going to my Great-Grandmother's house and being given a fresh crab sandwich and a banana - she died when I was 3.

Oh, and burying my head in my Mom's chest whilst sitting on her lap in my Nan's kitchen when my cousin walked in. I couldn't work her out and remember saying "Boy, boy..." which is quite funny as she'd have been around 15 at the time but I recall being confused about her, I couldn't work out of she was a boy or girl, she's now a rather butch lesbian. I was telling John this a while back and he laughed that my gaydar obviously kicked in at a very early age.

Di, I'm also amazed that your friend couldn't remember her first day at school!

I can! I was so nervous I was sick, and I can still remember the taste of the horrid plastic cup they gave me, to drink water out of afterwards

I remember when those of us who were going to that school were taken from the nursery one afternoon for a look around, meet the teacher etc.

I loved it when I started, I'd been itching to get to school. I used to watch the children walk past the house every morning and they seemed so grown up and I wanted to be like them! There was a boy called Lee in my class who cried every day for weeks - there was a small window overlooking the gates and he used to drag a chair across, stand on it, look out and howl for his Mom

I remember my first day at primary school when I was four. I cried and and I vividly remember Mrs McNeilly, the teacher of Baby Infants (that was what the youngest class was called) taking me bawling my head off from my mother's arms, carrying me across a bigger classroom and into a little one, setting me on her knee and talking gently to me until I calmed down. I loved her ever after. My mother told me that Mrs McN came out afterwards and assured my mother that I was OK and that she could go home and not worry.

I remember sitting on my mother's knee every day at 1.45 to listen to Listen With Mother and making her promise to listen every day when I started school so she could tell me the story when I got home. "Here's Daphne Oxenford to tell the story . Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin".

Kaz wrote:
My mum's first memory was of standing in her cot and getting covered in plaster from the ceiling when the next door street was bombed!

What a first memory to have!
My Mom used to tell me about coming out of the air raid shelter one morning and hearing what she thought was a baby lamb bleating (in the suburbs of Birmingham) in their house. It turned out that it was her newborn baby brother crying, he'd been born during the night while the rest of the family were sheltering from the bombs.

Life went on eh, amongst all the bombing

Oh don't get me wrong, I loved school, I had just got myself into a state of nerves on the first day I'd never been to playgroup or nursery, lots didn't in those days I loved it after that

I remember lying in my cot, playing with a plastic purse with a yellow chick on the front. I remember several thing about when we lived in Yorkshire and I left when I was 4. Years later, about 8 years ago, Tim and I went to Whitby. On the way back we called into North Ferriby and found the street. I walked down it and suddenly I stopped in front of a house, and said it was this one. It was the weirdest feeling, just standing there looking and remembering my dad walking down the road, playing with the kids next door on the green opposite, just such a visual memory

My first memory is when I was a toddler, well before school age.

We lived in a house having a fireplace in the corner of the living room, and it had a
high wire mesh safety guard round it. I was reaching over it with an article of clothing
in my hand, waving it in front of the burning coals. My mother had entered the room
in the opposite corner and was shouting at me in a VERY LOUD voice.