What are your HAPPIEST and most VIVID childhood memories?

[FrannyandZooey]

Things that really stand out for you? Were they with your parents, other kids, siblings, by yourself? What were you doing?

Some of mine are:

sitting by myself under the willow tree in our front garden making designs for cars in chalk on scraps of paper

going for long walks in the woods with my parents

having sleepovers with friends, highlights including bouncing on the bed, 'streaking', and midnight feasts

looking at the stars at night with my dad

running along the beach by myself and exploring all the places around my home on my bike

and making a "bird hide" out of deckchairs and old rugs in the garden, then watching all the blackbirds etc, while sucking ice lollies

I guess there wasn't really anything to argue about on here was there

ah well will try a less pleasant thread next time with lots of unreasonableness and a dash of judging and see if I have more luck

I was going to post but didn't want to ruin the tone with my lack of happy childhood memories as all my vivid ones are a little less than happy

Sorry SMS! No I was just sad I had misjudged what people might be interested in talking about, so completely

I am very sorry to hear your vivid memories are not happy ones

Whenever anyone mentions happy childhood memories to me, I am instantly transported back to 1976. I was 8, the summer lasted for ever and I had not a care in the world

ooh!

roller skating during a long hot summer listening to abba on a walkman

dancing in my bedroom to david essex

watching my sisters glitter up and me annoying their boyfriends

happy days

I have many vivid memories but like sms they're all uphappy ones. I don't remember much of my childhood, I think I must have blocked a lot out but what I do rememeber is mostly bad and no vivid good memories.

god 1976

stark naked in my front garden with a bucketful of ladybirds

a BUCKETFUL I tell you

they were crawling out of the sides

running as fast as my legs would carry me at a sports day in primary school. I could hear my dad over everything else shouting encouragement to me.

I felt so proud of myself. I love my dad.

No worries - tis why I deleted my original post in the first instance - but I wanted you to know I wasn't ignoring you per se.

come and see me on my equally intersting thread, I would love your easy meal

Sorry I have ruined this thread , I will leave you in peace now.

I do apologise that this thread has triggered unhappy memories for lots of people

I have been mentally working through a lot of stuff from my childhood lately and I wanted to focus on the stuff that really stood out as positive tonight, so I am sorry it has kind of backfired

People say about the ladybirds of 1976 and I just don't remember them!
I do remember watering the garden with the 4th hand bath water (I always got the water first, I was youngest, my dad always got it last. Bet he was delighted when water was "unrationed" and he could have a bath of clean water!)

You haven't ruined the thread SMS! I wanted people's honest reactions and it was kind of you to respond to my posts

Going to the duck pond with my dad and my sister on Sunday mornings so my mum could have a lie in.

My dad chasing us upstairs to bed to read us bed time stories - Chicken Licken, Mr Tickle, Beauty and the Beast were the best.

Summer holidays when would spend the whole day out with my sister and our friends on our bikes with a packed lunch.

Aaaaaaaw

My most vivid memories are also my earliest I think (and not happy I'm afraid), they coincide with the birth of my sister.

Happy memories... around 2yo, being carried back from the shops by my dad in the early evening, him singing and me looking over his shoulder. Also dancing around the living room at around the same age.

A little older... spending time with my favourite auntie, going camping and having my dad tell me about the universe just before going to sleep.

I love talking about things like this

Reading "Little women" while eating lemons.
Playing and running outside with friends during long summer nights in the countryside, eating an ice lolly.
Swimming in Sardinia, the sea was so transparent, I saw this fish, it was pink and blue, or at least that's what I thought it was!
Playing with Barbies

i used to tape the radio 1 chart show and have a disco with my little sis on our bay window seat (age 9).

walking for miles and miles in africa to fetch water and then getting there and carrying it back. it was a killer but it was such a beautiful walk and i was with all my african friends.

watching a rain cloud with pouring rain come down the hill and then get to us finally and drench us.

dancing in the rain when it poured (tropical thunder storms).

creating the STS with my sister - Skipping Training Society!

btw, i think this is a really lovely thread. it's made my rubbish day end in a good way.

There was a tree always full of ladybirds in forn of my grandmother's house

I have some very bad unhappy memories too but some of the happy ones are just as vivid.
I remember running back from the shop with a friend aged about six or seven, just as a thunderstorm started, massive 50p sized raindrops, that tarmaccy rain metal smell everywhere, and then sitting on the windowsill together watching the storm. They were Tom thum drops, 2oz for 15p.

Oh yes, taping the chart show!

'Playing out' - something kids (in London at least) don't seem to do these days (and if they are allowed to, they're deemed neglected street urchins!). I knew every nook and cranny of the neighbouring streets, estates, parks etc.

Days spent in various London parks (as we didn't have a garden). My mum reading in the sunshine and my gran rolling up her skirt and taking off her stockings to get a tan on her chicken legs :-)

Primary school. Everything about it. I loved it.

Lying in bed in the room I shared with my sister, having whispered conversations when ym mum thoguthbwe were asleep. Listening to my mum playing the piano downstairs. And sometimes sneaking down and watching crap programmes like 'Magnum P.I' through the bannisters. lol

I'm still trying to think of good ones

Going to the local park and building dens.

Having chicken pox when I was about 6 and watching all the other children walking home from school whilst I was sat in my dressing gown with a Mr Pinkwhistle book. I always got a book when I was ill. Brilliant!

Tossing a coin with my sister to decide whether we would call our pet rabbit "Buffy" (her choice) or "Mr Woffles" (my choice). In retrospect I would say it was lucky she won.