What's your earliest memory?

[piskieinboots]

My pal has just given birth to a wee person - she (wee person) is really cute (for a baby!) not a bit of the scaley type skin they often have - I mentioned about said baby having floated around inside a bubble of liquid for the last nine months.

So why don't we remember what it's like in there and what did we think about when in there. How can we think of nothing?

My earliest memory is being plonked into a pushchair at 18 months old, I made a loud fuss cos I wanted to walk.

[chris]

I really can't remember to be honest. I do remember going to Wales and staying in a caravan - then going picking your own.. Coming back and podding broadies, etc. No idea how old I was... But perhaps that left some impression deep down somewhere which is why I like to grow now?

[bobleponge]

I remember reading somewhere that in general our earliest memories are at about 4 years of age, with occasional glimpses from about 2 years in certain individuals.
I distinctly remember being in Valetta harbour watching my dad's ship come back in, and my mother smacking me because I couldnt see him. We moved from Malta to Singapore just before my 4th birthday, so I would have been between 2-4, but cant date it any better than that. After that, it was a 6th birthday party for a friend so I would have been about the same age I guess.
I find it a fascinating subject, as small children we have a fantastic capacity to absorb new information, but dont seem to remember doing so. Why is this I wonder?

[Glutton4...]

I have two early memories. I remember quite clearly the day my Sister was born. I was 3 years and about 3 weeks old at the time. I also remember choking on some crisps, one evening, and being given a banana and sugar sarnie to cheer me up, but I couldn't say which was the earliest memory.

[piskieinboots]

I find it a fascinating subject, as small children we have a fantastic capacity to absorb new information, but dont seem to remember doing so. Why is this I wonder?

I guess because we must start off with a blank hard-drive waiting to be populated with all that comes before us.

We really are truly remarkable aren't we

[Glutton4...]

I've always said my brain is like a hard drive that's in desperate need of a defrag. Should've been a Mac!

[piskieinboots]

defragging is just soo satisfying isn't it

[julesapple]

I remember my first pair of jeans. They were bought to go camping and were made of stiffened cardboard, or so it seemed, and that was the problem. I couldn't move in them, run to keep up (being the youngest/smallest) so being left behind and I can remember crying. I was about 2 at the time.


Jules

[OverWyreGrower]

I have lots of memories from being about 3 upwards, but nothing any earlier....

I can remember sitting on the stools at the breakfast bar when I was about 3, waiting to open my advent calendar. I can remember hiding behind the sofa, colouring in my mum's anaglypta wallpaper, knowing that it was naughty! I can remember being terrified of ET and having nightmares about him living in our dresser drawers in the dining room (still can't watch ET by the way!)

However, apparantly, photos can 'make' you have a memory of something that didn't happen, or give you a memory of somthing you actually can't remember. However, I can't validate this, as I have forgotton when I read it/saw/it/was told it.....

[di]

Both of mine were quite soul destroyingly embarrassing,which is probably why they stuck...can't remember which was first but I was about 3 or 4 for both.One,my parents left me with my Grandparents for the day as they took my sisters to London,I can remember feeling jealous about it but the worst part was wetting myself and not having a change of clothes so I spent the day in just a pair of my Grandma's huge knickers secured at the waist with some ribbon
The other occasion the Dr was called out because I had tummy problems(constipation)...he rather foolishly laid me on my back and lifted my legs and whatever had been struggling to get out rather quickly escaped

[Glutton4...]

Coffee ---> Poota!

[Glutton4...]

defragging is just soo satisfying isn't it

Of my brain? Pleeeeeease tell me how - it's soooo full of sh!te! LOL

[Piggle]

My mum used to wash us in the kitchen sink as it was too cold in the bathroom and I remember there always being a gutted chicken on the tap which had jusy been rinsed and was drying off....... that's safe isn't it , obviously salmonella hadn't been invented at that point!

[Hans Mum]

my earliest memory is my little bruv being born at home, I'm 4years & 10months older than him. My sister & I were sent next door early saturday morning & by lunchtime he was here, I remember runnning up and down the street shouting "Ive got a baby brother"

[HeyWayne]

A few clear memories from early age;

The night my brother was discovered to have epilepsy - I was in bed and wondered what was going on. remember my dad coming in crying telling me that Peter had been taken to hospital and that he wasn't very well. I'd never seen my dad crying before. I must have been a bit older than 4.

I must have been about 4-5 because it was junior school. My mum couldn't make it to school to pick me up - so she asked our neighbours' son (about 15-16 yrs old) and his friends to pick me up. I didn't recognise them so ran away from them, and ran the whole way home, about 3 miles away, crying and shouting all the way.

One I have fleeting memories of (but possibly because the story has been told so often by my parents). I was about 3 years old. I was born in high-rise flats, then we moved to an old people's home as my mum was a warden, then we moved again into the house that they still live in to this day. I know I was about 3, because my brother hadn't been born and he was born in that house when I was 4. Anyways - I went missing. My mum was frantic, my dad was called home from work in the factory and the police sent out a search party, neighbours, dogs - the lot. This went on for a few hours. Then my mum received a phone call. It was her old neighbour at the flat. "Hello Jean, Wayne's here on his own, and says he wants to see his bedroom". I'd driven my pedal tractor the 4 miles from our current home to the flat. Crossing main roads, pedalling through alleyways and ended up at my old flat. The neighbour was questioned, and I was hugged tightly. All was then well with the world.