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?"

The smell of a proper old fashioned greengrocer shop. Supermarkets don't have the same smell.
It needs to include tomatoes and apples

Loving reading everyone's stories 🥺

The quiet whine of the electric milk floats that used to come before dawn. As a child, I found it both comforting and exciting, somehow.
The old foghorn that I used to hear faintly through the night.
The peaceful sound of those push cast iron lawnmowers.
Yes to wood pigeons and distant trains.
The little noise emitted by a contented hen.
Although I listened mainly to “underground” music, many of the mainstream sixties/seventies hits that were all over the radio, the fairground and the amusement arcades evoke the feelings of summer days in my youth. “Good Morning Starshine” “All Right Now” “Woodstock” and others.
Pears soap = DM
Imperial Leather = DGM
Patchouli = all my friends
When you get what I call the night smell, when the sky is that wonderful dark blue and you know it has changed from day into night.
On a sadder note, anything to do with World War One upsets me greatly; I sometimes wonder if I was there in a previous incarnation.

Fresh sawdust, reminds me of hubby woodworking in the shed, i miss that smell .

I absolutely know that smell. In fact I think I am subcouncioisly seeking that smell every Christmas but it's just not there now. I can imagine the smell. Something is always missing and I think it's the smell. Plastic. 80s.

And creosote. Takes me instantly back to my childhood going through the alleys of the estate.

Creosote and privet hedges, and tar bubbles on the road.

I saw one of those old wooden school desks recently where you lifted the top and kept your books underneath, immediately transported back to my primary school classrooms.

There was also an episode of series 2 of Rivals with the ‘It’s a knock out’ type episode. The shots of the crowds through the 1980s camera lenses brought floods of memories back about how TV used to look.

I got very emotional a few weeks ago remembering the carefree teenage years when studying for A levels, a couple of friends have since died but those heady days of the promise of youth, the weekend jobs that paid for the nights out, the 90s indie scene at nightclubs that have since closed down etc were great. I stood outside one of those clubs that are now flats and smiled with a tear in my eye for my friends who didn’t make it.

The smell of Vic vapour rub takes me right back to my childhood in the 1960’s when my mum would rub it on my throat and chest when I had a cold. A feeling of being loved, cared for and so safe by my lovely mum who died nearly 30 years ago.
it’s actually very comforting.

The smell of bracken takes me right back to childhood caravan holidays in Wales when we walked through the bracken to the beach. If the ground is sandy all the better. The memories are so vivid, and I must be thinking back to when I was no older than 5.

Also the smell of a tin of Quality Street is childhood Christmas all wrapped up, but sadly they just don’t smell (or taste) how they used to.

TV programmes is a massive one, also Christmas, always get a kick in the nostalgia around Christmas. Sometimes certain songs, like I’ll remember when I first heard it and then it will remind me of something else.

The smell of tomato vines in a warm greenhouse. Actually holding the tomatoes and smelling where the vine joins the fruit. Makes me think of growing/picking tomatoes with my grandad and I get a flash of feeling like a young child. Magical.