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

Making up dance routines eg In the Jungle by Tight Fit!
Making potions in the bathroom like George's Marvelous Medicine
Recording pretend radio shows on cassette with entire home-made top ten countdown!

As teenagers, acting our age with my friends rather than how we thought we should act eg talking in silly voices and being very silly even if there were boys around.

I was thinking about trying to give ds happy memories, really rich experiences to draw upon

I think looking back for me it is time spent outdoors messing around that I enjoyed the most

and I am really CRAP at doing that with ds

We had guinea pigs called Buffy and Lizzie after the ones on Playschool!

taping top of the pops on a cassette recorder from the tv.

Rock pooling with my little brother on the Llynn Peninsula, and finding a place where a stream met the sea - the sand there was full of tiny coaster sized flatfish. we spent the whole holiday constructing complex traps, but I think we only caught one.

Finding a little cove there called Porth Colman, and discovering that there were bright yellow and orange shells there - nowhere else, only there.

making tents with mum's (clean - hung-out-to-dry!) sheets. We did this all the time and she never told us off!

Franny, he'll have differnt happy memories than yours. I'm also afraid that some of our children's happy memories won't be related to us parents, at least immediately...

i think we all worry about that f&z

Climbing all over the embankment with my friends - about 8 or nine years old.

kids still gravitate to tangley brushy areas to play though, nothing really chnges.

Making chairs out of conker shells for these little dolls called Li'l Babies!

being given 10p and buying Rainbow Puffs at the shop.

And finding about £3.50 in change, and blowing the lot on sweets in the same shop!

Gosh Franny I am so conscious of that too

my sister got 10 pounds for her birthday once and bought 100 penny sweets - postman pats, fruit salads and black jacks (but less of those as they were not as popular with us!).

franny, think outdoor stuff and friends stuff/ sibling stuff is what holds happy memories - for me anyway. although my parents 'enabled' those situations to happen.

Mapickle- I had Mr pinkwhistle too!

I think this thread is bound to get mixed reactions, when you really cast your mind back it's amazing how powerful the memories are.

I rember being on the back of my Dad's Harley Davidson, I can only have three or four

We also made a lot of potions, milk bottles and rose petals, I can actually smell them. Smell is very linked to memories isn't it?

I now what you mean, Franny, about making the memories, wondering what your children will remember etc. I do so much more with mine than I ever got to do but my happiest ones are very simple, are mostly in the garden or street or school.

I remember being extremely happy to get a tiny tears doll for xmas in 1881.

yes I was asking to see if it was a common theme

I am trying to chuck out the stuff that isn't important and focus on the good stuff

does anyone think "mmm I really LOVED those piano lessons I went to"?

well, maybe someone does...

Should we give our memories to do with our parents F&Z? Ok ...

My dad building me and my sister a toy cupboard to our specifications

My dad teaching me to ride my bike without stabilisers in the back lane. I remember wobbling towards him chuffed to bits that I finally wasn't falling off

Going swimming with my sister and my dad and taking turns to stand on my dad's hands to he could throw us backwards into the water

Having fish and chips every Friday round the table with a big pot of tea in the middle and mum and dad deciding what (very cheap) things we would do that weekend

Day trips to Bolton Abbey with my mum and sister and our cousins and swimming in the river there whilst mum hovered anxiously (she never learnt to swim)

1981 even

I have thought of a happy one

Hidding between the shed making mud pies in our summer dresses....then throwing them at each other

Oh yes! Potions in the bathroom like George's Marvelous Medicine! I did that too.

And sneAKily planted a potato to see what would happen (duh, it grew and I got some potatoes the next year!)

Putting a yellow bonnet and cape on my cat, and tying to take her for a walk in a mini silvercross pram; she kept jumping out.

Falling through the ice on a canal with my sister (who was 10 years older and should have known much better)

Playing the chocolate game, just me and my mum, when we were alone for the weekend.

Playing murder in the dark with my siblings. I was the youngest, and they would keep absolutely silent in the pitch blackness. It was so scary!

Mapickle, we took our kids to Bolton Abbey for Easter, we had a lovely day

No no MaPickle

I did want to hear your unfiltered happiest memories - if what people look back on most fondly is time spent mucking around with othr kids, then I want to give ds the space and the opportunity to do that

it doesn't have to be me sitting there with him

Children seem happiest, then, when left to wander about and fiddle with stuff on their own!

SMS mud pies on your dresses

i think most vivid memories are vivid because they were different from the norm and so delighted you. mine are anyway, as i have a terrible memory.

one with parents...kentucky fried chicken on the cliffs of dover overlooking the sea - big saturday treat.

walks in somerset where my gran lives.

i learned the clarinet till grade 8 and gave up as soon as i left home!!! not many happy memories there...i looked like a twit playing it.

It was time without my parents, although they were there they weren't contributing, IYSWIM

finishing school to have looong summers melting by Mediterranean beaches

Swimming in the sea with my family

yes, def colditz.