What is the strangest thing that triggers intense nostalgia or emotion for you?

[Missohnoyoubetterdont]

Not the standard smell of cut grass or old perfume. I mean something completely specific and quirky. For me, it is the sound of wood pigeons calling on a warm summer’s evening , or the feeling when you get up really early and there’s that stillness and possibility hanging in the air , I think it’s the wonderful feeling of potential and reminds me of travelling in hot sunny climbs. Other weird one is the smell of hot water bottles! Reminds me of childhood. It gives me a profound, aching sort of homesickness for a time I can’t quite name. What is your weird emotional trigger?"

Lovely idea for a thread!

Certain TV programme themes - Father Ted and The Golden Girls (used to watch these with my nan).
Also the smell of really fragrant roses. They remind me of her garden.
Nostalgia feels like an ache in the pit of the stomach that is both painful and pleasant to me. Maybe it’s when it’s linked to missing someone so intensely.

White rice and tomato ketchup mixed together - it’s what I used to eat as a kid at my grandmas when she cooked spicy food.

The smell of petrol. Garage forecourts used to smell different.

Yes! I get this. Also the smell of Smokey, beery pubs. I hate smoking now but somehow that combination really triggers a response as it’s basically the smell of my student years! 😂

The smell of shoe polish. My dad used to polish his shoes in his study and it had a particular lingering smell that reminds me of him.

Oh another one, the other day I was walking into an airport while someone was smoking outside by the door, and in the doorway bit there was a smell of stale smoke and dusty doormat. It was a really specific smell that took me straight back to an arcade where I used to hang out in my teens (prior to the smoking ban). That stale smoke and old carpet aroma. Good times!

The very light summers evenings do me this to me. I love them, it was light until after 10 here yesterday and felt full of memories of playing out late and going for bike rides. Also sadness there would only be a finite number of them left (I'm not dying or anything just suddenly aware if the passage of time!)

Also tea from thermos flasks.

Agree with the wood pigeons! Reminds me of staying at my grandparents and lying in bed thinking they were owls!
Also the smell of old cigarette smoke too, reminds me of butlins in the 90s when everyone would smoke in the disco!
Smelling a brand new book , randomly takes me back to my year 6 sats when I smelled the reading material pamphlet. I vividly remember it had a picture of a turtle on it

Also random old computer sounds and soundtracks from old games, sometimes listen to them on YouTube to get a hit 🤣

The sound of cicadas. When I was young, I lived in both Greece and the South of France, and they immediately induce nostalgia whenever I hear them.
Metal polish - my mother was a demon cleaner and always polished everything that could be polished, so as well as lavender furniture polish, Brasso and Goddard’s silver polish are both reminiscent of my youth.

Button moon song
instant upset and fear no idea why

I once cried a little bit when I saw a glass milk bottle.

Very early morning outdoor smell. Reminds me of childhood holidays and all the potential of the day, all good memories.

Equally, very heavy rain which likewise reminds me of holidays, but in the sense of long summer weeks off school at home with mum and sibling, baking, craft, puzzles, games. No pressure to go out or mix with other people.

The combination of Opium perfume and Golden Virginia rolling tobacco. I was in a pub years ago and smelled both at once from different people and it was like I'd fallen into a cloud of my mother. She's not been in my life for a long time, so that was a strange blend of pleasure and pain.

Wet roses, azaleas, honeysuckle.

Any song by the Lighthouse Family or Gabrielle (that'll age me!)

Landslide by Stevie Nicks. Not nostalgia necessarily, but it makes me cry 100% reliably.

Cigar smoke and wax jackets bring my grandfather back immediately.

And then those fizzy belt sweets from pick-'n'mix – but they have to be a bit hot so they're extra floppy 😅

Wood pigeons- yes, going to the cemetery with Mother as a child to tidy grandparents grave - also rhe smell of thr stagnant water in the flower vases as it was changed. Plimsolls & wellies. Shortbread. The purring of a cat.

The sound of trains in the distance - it reminds me of lying in bed as a young teenager, hearing trains and thinking about the potential of the world outside of what I knew.

Shopping malls. They remind me of being a teenager and shopping with my parents or going ice skating or to the movies with friends.

I have a certain rose that reminds me of the smell of roses when I was a kid.
The sound of a tennis match at Wimbledon on the TV reminds me of those hot endless summers of the 70’s, sat on the couch in the house I grew up in with mum sat in her chair. I so wish I could go back to speak to her.

Growing up I had to split my time between Scotland and England due to parents living separately.

There is an earthy smell that strongly reminds me of Scotland because I can smell it everywhere when I am up there, but i have only smelled it a handful of times in England. It’s 100% NOT pine or cowpats, but I cannot for the life of me figure out what it actually is.

Ive gotten it down to some kind of grass or floor grower as the smell kicked up the other day while I was mowing a wild patch in my garden - unfortunately there re bout 10 different weeds, grasses and mosses there and no matter which one I picked up I couldn’t find it again :(

Do you remember when petrol stations used to have a watering can of water on the forecourt, so that you could top up the window washer?

The smell of a launderette takes me back to being unwell as a child, my mum would wrap me in a blanket, feed me tomato soup with a bread roll, and get on with the ironing. Don't know why my own laundry hasn't got the same effect.
When I was about 14, on the bus home from school, a lady got on wearing a perfume and the smell of it gave me the funny tummy feeling that @Stumbleine described. I have no idea why. But years later I bought a cheap perfume from Aldi that smelt the same,and it triggered the memory and reaction that I'd had nearly 50 years ago.

Love this thread. Mine is the sound of church bells, used to get up to them every Sunday morning as a child

I sometimes get a whiff of a very particular cafeteria smell and it takes me back to being young and going to Lewis' cafe with my Mum.

There is a certain plasticky (probably chemical 🙈) smell off things like lilos and certain kids toys that remind me of Christmas as a kid…specifically I got a plastic wendy house one year which I loved and every so often I will smell that smell and be transported to 1981 😂

These are all so lovely! 🙏

Sounds strange but the hum of radiators and a rainy Sunday afternoon, takes me straight back to childhood, reading comic books huddled up on a rainy Sunday.

Knorr Instant Chicken Noodle Soup. Had it every Sunday night in front of Howard’s End or Tales of the Unexpected

A specific strawberry glycerine soap smell. I went to hospital to have my tonsils out and I got to choose a soap to take with me. It was strawberry shaped and scented and although I only used it for two days it takes me straight back to the early 1980s

coronation St theme tune.

Boil in the bag kippers

The smell of latex (from Plastercasters if anyone remembers them)

Salad Cream

All those old regional tv idents. Anglia, Thames, LWT, Tyne Tees, Granada, Yorkshire. I can hear the Thames one now ‘do do do doo, doo do doo doooooo’ 😬