What's your earliest memory?

[katewhinesalot]

After reading a memoir where the author describes an incident that happened when she was three years old in great detail, I'm wondering whether this is usual. I have a few memories of that age but they are hazy and certainly no memory of conversations.

I remember being held on the lap of a playgroup worker as she was reading a story to a group of children sitting on the floor. I was crying my eyes out as I wanted my mum.
I also remember the home corner at said playgroup.
But these are just snapshots, as are memories of the first year or two at school. Not much detail at all until I was 7ish.

Do you remember bad incidents more do you think?

Like yourself I have snapshots of being 2/3 - an afternoon playgroup , losing my wellies in a muddy field behind our house and in particular going to Battersea and getting a puppy . I would be suspicious that any in depth memories were a bit creative especially of specific conversations .

Quite a few memories from when I was 2-3, can remember being in a pushchair and a travel cot, plenty from nursery school, grandparents coming to stay, first trip to a cinema, pets etc. I can remember a few conversations but more subject matter than detail

I have two early ones and I'm not sure which was first. One was sitting on a grassy hill at my nursery school with a friend (we went to different primary schools and mine didn't have grass so I know it must have been nursery), she had gorgeous maroon t-bar Clarks shoes which I loved, and we sat on the hill trying to make daisy chains but we weren't very good at it.

The second was always going to our local shop with my mum and meeting a man who always spoke nicely to me but I was petrified of him because I thought he was an actual giant. I don't remember a face, just a huge shadow. The shop was fairly narrow, it was mainly a newspaper and tobacconist, with a high counter (well it felt high to me, probably wasn't that bad), the narrow area to queue and then at the "back" were baskets of basic veg like potatoes and carrots (all loose and unwashed of course.) There was just enough space to pass by someone, but he seemed to take up the entire shop to me.

My mum later told me it was Robbie Coltrane, she was fairly friendly with him as we'd often be in that same shop together.

*newsagents, not newspaper

*newsagents, not newspaper.

That was a fail.

I can remember climbing the stairs in my house at 2ish (was my old house and we had moved to new house by time I was 2.5) i can remember my mum was rubbing a bath and I was climbing stairs to her calling me up 😂

I have about a minute's memory of nursery but I do remember when I was toddling. I have a memory of staggering across old chequered lino tiles towards a pair of white-clad legs and starting to fall between them. Nothing more.

It was a pretty horrific incident as the owner of the legs was shutting a cupboard door; the lower cupboards all had little catches like Yale locks. I caught my mouth in the lock as I fell forward and then down, ripping a good chunk of my lower lip off. I still have the scar and an uneven lower lip; it did stop me thumbsucking as Mum had to sit with me all night to stop me touching my mouth! 😁

My father couldn't believe that I could remember that far back as just toddling but I could tell him exactly which cupboard it was in the kitchen and the colour of it all - they had certainly never told me which cupboard or much about the actual accident, more about the aftermath and we left that house when I was about 6 - I'm 58 now.

I remember vividly climbing out of my cot early every Wednesday so I could watch the bin men empty the buckets. I think I might have been 3 and in a cot later than usual.

I remember climbing in to my pushchair. The seat was a bit wobbly when you stood on it to sit down. I also remember my older brother standing on the metal footplate hitching a ride while I sat in the pushchair.
I must have been 2 or 3. I know it was a real memory as I recognise the pushchair (including colour) in an old Mothercare catalogue.

Quite a few similar to mine then.

Interesting that getoff can remember the gist of conversations. Were they mundane conversations or were the connected to emotions of some kind?

Too many
That's a traumatic memory. Maybe it is the emotion thing.

Katewhinesalot, they were connected to specific events really - like when we got a colour TV (age alert!). I can remember a lot of the conversation as we walked back from nursery school, she was making me guess what the surprise was and I can remember what the things I guessed and then the conversation with the TV installation man (yes that long ago!) who was back at the house tuning it in when we got home. The first thing I saw on a colour TV was horse racing, in case you needed to know! I was 3 at the time.

A few of events in the first house we lived in, which we moved out of when I was 4.

Sitting in the doorway of my granddad's living room, looking up at my dad, who had a white tie and long hair. My dad says that was when I was 18 months ish.

I remember looking out of the window and straining to poo in my nappy, I was out of nappies just after 2 so it must have been one of my earliest memories.

I also remember visiting (and can describe) my parents friends house and we only went there once and I wasn't quite 2.

Age 3 I caught an old style of sleeper train with my mum. I remember the beds flipping down to make beds and the shiny, silver sink came down from the wall to wash our hands/face. You then flipped the sink section up and the water went through a hole in the side of the train. It was a lovely holiday to a friends farm, and I remember milking a cow, collecting fresh eggs, riding on a horse (with an adult on the horse) and picking fresh raspberries from around the creek.

Age 4 I had a grommet put into my ear during a general anaesthetic. I still remember the black mask they put over my face in the operating theatre and the cannula going in the back of my hand. I awoke in a shared room, with 3 other kids. There was a single, tiny TV on the wall (early 1980's) and I'd been vomiting from the anaesthetic.

I lived abroad and travelled a great deal from age 8-11 and recall the majority of places we went in great detail, including several foreign words I learnt at the time. My OH is amazed that I can recall things so clearly from the majority of my childhood, whereas he claims to not know much prior to about age 12!!!

Getting my dress caught on the top of the slide and falling down face first, I must have been around 3. I can clearly remember the shock as I slipped!

@Eloura, "I still remember the black mask they put over my face in the operating theatre"

Me too. I had an operation with the black mask. To this day, if I smell something like the gas, it turns my stomach. I don't generally remember smells, but I remember that one!

My earliest memory is being in the wheelchair being pushed home from playgroup, and my mum telling me I wouldn't be able to suck my dummy when I went up to "big school".

I also recall being about 2/3 and standing at our front door. Mum and I had been shopping. I had a summer dress and knickers on, but pooed myself before mum could get the door unlocked. She kept saying 'we are nearly home, hold it till the toilet'. It was the LAST time I pooed myself!

I definitely remember waking from a bad dream (a nightmare about an elephant being hurt in the circus) and being on my back in a crib in my parents' room.

Had tooth taken out about 5 years definitely remember the gas smell. Again, nightmare on that, running up lighthouse/tunnel..... Eldeeno, agree- that smell stays with you forever. How wierd.

I have a few little "cameo" memories from when I was 2 and 3.
I remember when I was about 2 and half going to visit our new house while it was being built. In those days (1960) there were no fences around building sites and as it was a weekend we all (mum, dad and my sister) just walked in and looked around. Mum had brought a picnic lunch for us and we sat and ate it in the sitting room. I can't remember what mum, dad and my sister were sitting on but I do remember that there was nowhere for me to sit and I got very upset. Dad found a couple of bricks and a small plank of wood and made me a little seat and I loved it. That incident made such an impression on me that I've never forgotten it.

I also remember, shortly after we moved in, when I was 3, venturing out into the garden in my little red wellies and getting stuck in the mud. I stood there crying, but my parents laughed I remember feeling devastated!

I remember sleeping in a cot and then feeling very grown up when I moved to a big bed. Probably age 3.

But my earliest memories are from when I was just 2, in the early months of 1960. My sister had asthma (I didn't know then, of course) and I remember my parents putting bowls of boiling water in the bedroom and telling me that I was not to go near them.

There was an elderly lady who lived in the flat above ours and I remember following my sister up the steep, dark staircase to his and say hello. She was a kind old soul and used to give us little presents of sweets etc. We moved out of the flat about a month before my 3rd birthday.

First birthday, being in the bath when a GM arrived, bringing me a big teddy. Longer ago than I care to mention, but I still have the teddy.

Also must have been very small, being put to bed in a drawer, probably lined with a blanket, at another GMs house at Christmas. There was a doll on the tree that was for me - I remember that, too.

All a bit fuzzy now, after so many years, but certainly first memories.

Dh says that when he was a child, he could remember before he was born - being all curled up somewhere very warm and dark.

I remember a conversation with an estranged relative in hospital aged 18 months (he died soon after so definitely that age). He explained why he was in hospital and that he’d die soon. Surprisingly I understood the concept and remember being shocked he didn’t seem more upset. My dad was out of the room and didn’t know about the conversation until I mentioned much later things I hadn’t been told by my parents, so my memory must be accurate.

I had teeth out aged around 3 and can remember waking up with a mouthful of blood.

I can remember sleeping on a blow up bed at my brothers house around 2 and waking up and looking at the moon through the curtains and missing my mum (she was on holiday).

I can remember my mum buying us our first ever "Ken" doll aged around 3.

I can remember my sister biting me and my nana biting her back at around 2.5.

I can remember looking round our primary school aged 4. My mum got a new job so my dad had to take us in our first day and it was odd as he normally works away.

I can remember being ill when I was about two and a half, and my Grandmother sitting with me and cutting out pictures from a magazine.

I can also remember the words of a song Grandmother taught me in her own language, around that time. The words had actions with them, as children' song often do. My Father was absolutely astounded when I sang it to him when I was well over 50!

I remember huge chunks from when I was four and five, first days at school, what clothes I wore, etc.