I was thinking about what i miss from my childhood and a few things came back to me
I could remember in the summer holidays going to visit by Grandma who lived in Yorkshire. I would travel on the train with my sister, from Scotland to Yorkshire by ourselves and have no worries. We were both about 11 and 12 year olds. We really loved the independence and felt really grown up, eating our meat paste sandwiches what mum had made for us. I now have two children and wouldn’t dream of putting them on a train on their own. How times have changed!
The other thing i remember was my favourite sweets… rainbow sherbot, it was sweet and coulourful. My tougue looked bright orange wehn i had finished the bag.
My auntie had a caravan in Towyn North Wales and we spent lovely summers there,Crossing the open railway to get to the beach - how bad is that now- its got a bridge now.Always remember going on the waltzers -still love them.
Every year on Boxing Day we would visit my paternal grandparents for the day. It was always roast beef and it always tasted different to any other roast, Grandma’s gravy was legendary. After lunch we played games like the memory tray and then for tea it was always salmon sandwiches of the tinned red variety and luminous coloured jelly with tinned fruit.
Their Christmas tree was a very small artificial one, which I always thought was lovely as my dad always got us the biggest real tree he could cram into the house, and it stood on the bookcase cos the lounge was tiny. Before we went home we always got a big bar of Cadbury Dairy Milk as a pressie from under the tree. Every year was the same and I loved it as much as Christmas Day.
I remember when my brother was born (he was the legend after 3 girls and a 5 year gap). He was 9 weeks prem and was in hospital for ages - when he eventually got home my older sister, who was 7 at the time, asked if she could bring her friends from school to see her baby … Mam said yes thinking she would bring 3-5 little girls … however she brought the entire class (boys as well) … there was a line snaking down the garden path and one by one she let them come in and look at her baby brother in the pram. To this day, some 30 odd years later we still do not know what my sister said to get everyone to come to the house.
I seem to have spent quite a bit of my childhood trying to poison my brother (who was a right regal pain in the butt).
I mixed earth a water in an empty coke bottle and told him it was coke. He drank it all.
I told him the sand in the sandpit was good to eat. He ate it.
My piece de resistance was…I remember telling my little brother that the poisonous berries at the side of the house were the same as the raspberries and gooseberries at the back of the house. So he ate them. Later that night he wasn’t very well and Dad had to take him to hospital. The medics were trying to make my brother sick, and my poor Dad had his fingers down his son’s throat trying to make him barf, but he simply wouldn’t throw up. Dad didn’t know what the plant was, and he had to come home to get a sample of it. Then the hospital organised for some botanist from the University to come and identify the berries. It wasn’t really poisonous at all, my parents LIED to us (actually, they didn’t know!).
I think my parents were a bit wary of me after that, as I don’t remember trying to kill him again after that.
My parents used to have a large wardrobe and it was in the late 60’s and mum had a couple of fur coats and the usual polyester dresses,My brother, who is six years older than me,and I used to push all the clothes to one side and sit against them to watch a slide show on a toy projector ,but we sat in there with a lit candle -how dangerous was that.My big brother is now Station Officer in charge of training firefighters!!!
I don’t know if i want to laugh or cry!! Bless your little brother
My big brother did pick on me being the youngest… to get my biscuits off me at supper time he would bribe me and tell me, if i didn’t give him the biscuits he would tell my mum i had done something naughty:-( He being the eldest i always believed him.
I did get my own back one time… his hobby as a youngster was to paint figurines from"dungeons and dragons". On one particular day while he was out,i thought i would help… opps big mistake, made a right mess!!! He never forgave me for years.
throwing a dart in my brothers back,he was 3 years younger than me,wellll ,he wouldnt move from in front of the dart board so I just threw it…I am a nice person really…reading my twinkle annuals,helping my grandma plunge her washing in the twin tub then wringing it out on the mangle…oh my word,how old do I sound?My best memory of all was watching peter pan on tv with my OTHER brother and my mum all sat on the same armchair in front of the coal fire.Then it was a stage type version of it,not like nowadays were there is about 50 different versions of it.playing in air raid shelters that were at the back of our house was another thing I liked doing.Kids are not allowed to have real fun now are they?If they did half of what we used to do they would get arrested or snatched.We used to disappear for hours and no one knew where we were or what we were doing.
Arh what a lovely thread.
One of mine is being off school sometimes genuinely ill other times faking it. Lying on the settee in front of a big coal fire with mums coat around me. Mum bringing me warm drinks and stroking my head and caring and being so loving.
Used to love lying in her warm bed too and telling her stories (always had a fab imagination)
If only she was here now.
I remember a Summer holiday at Prestatyn, the endless, golden yellow sand, searching for shells, digging sandcastles, and favourite treat…going on Donkey rides along the sands [6d a go…gosh darn it that dates me …lol]
If I stop to think about it, I would probably have lots of favourite childhood memories but one that first comes to mind is spending a few days every year in the summer holidays with my maternal grandparents and my cousins from Italy (my mother’s sister married an Italian gentleman). My grandparents lived in a two bedroomed flat in Hackney, London. My family have lived all over the place but I can remember travelling up and down to London from Brighton and Lincoln - I can remember the excitement of the journey at the beginning and then all the petty rows that we would have on the way as we became increasingly tired (and lost!) but it was always so much fun when we arrived. My cousins would travel from Northern Italy to England by train, which always fascinated me. The children (boys and girls) would all sleep in one room - 4 girls in one double bed, 3 boys in a single bed, top and tail - while the adults would somehow manage with the remaining two rooms, the bedroom and the lounge. During the day, after we had taken forever to get up, washed and dressed and have breakfast, we would all – adults and children – go for a walk in the park just behind the flat (I love London parks to this day) – the children running ahead of the adults, while they laboured behind talking about goodness knows what. We would also take a game with us and either play football or cricket/rounders – and the adults would play too. In the evening we would have tea – celery, tinned salmon, egg mayonnaise, triangle sandwiches, etc, etc – and perhaps play a game of shove’hapenny afterwards. My granddad (or jamjar as I apparently use to call him) would occasionally treat us each to a slice of a mars bar too – delicious but wouldn’t be enough for me now!
Years later, when my Granddad was no longer alive and my nan had just died, my aunt and two of my cousins returned from Italy for the funeral. Beforehand, all of us, including some of my nieces and nephews, went for a walk in the park – only this time I was one of the ‘adults’!
I’ve probably got a very distorted memory of it all but its the way I like to remember it and, when I have finished chemo, I am planning to go to Italy for a break so that I can relive my memories all over again!
Getting up in the early morning on holiday in the East Coast, (probably Mablethorpe) and walking to the paper shop with my father and then across the deserted beach. Coming back to the caravan the whole site smelled of bacon cooking - the most wonderful smell in the fresh clean air.
Also in the caravan at night my mum and dad put me to bed and drew a curtain across and then talked softly while playing cards, it was so snug, especially if the rain pattered off the caravan roof. I felt so safe nothing could harm me then.
I remember tormenting my little brother too…aged 3, I was 5 and sister was 9.
My sister and I dressed him up in my bridesmaid dress and stuffed a cushion up the front then duly painted his eyelids with pink nail varnish. My mum and dad went ballistic.
I also remeber popping tar bubbles in the hot summer weather and spreading it onto our legs. I remember mum trying to get it off with lard???
I also ate a full bottle of junior aspirins (bit off the childproof top) and had to have a stomach pump…not nice at 31/2! My dad said all he could hear was me screaming then gurgling…
Spending half my summer holidays with my Grandma and going out on day trips. One memory was when my Grandma took my sister and me to have our ears pierced. I was really excited because i had been nagging my mum to have my ears done We got back home amd my mum wasn’t to pleased. My Grandma didn’t tell my mum that she was doing this. I really miss my Grandma, but my childhood memories of her, will always be there.
Hi
This is such a wonderful thread! Thank you Kirsty
My memories are of sharing a double bed with my twin sister in my grandfathers house with a bolster pillow down the middle. My nan had died a few years earlier. Went to visit every year for holiday as he lived on the south coast. We would play in the sand dunes for hours and hours. My uncle would join us and we would play rounders
creating a tent with a clothes horse with blankets and playing with little brother until he teased me . . .
