What are your earliest memories?

Getting out of my pram for the last time and refusing to go in it again. Mother was wheeling g me down to Rathmines, it was pouring wet, and I wanted to feel the rain. The funny thing is that I remember it was opposite a green shop. My mother told me I was under two at this stage.

I have an even earlier memory, a very early one indeed. My parents had lost their first baby due to Asian Influenza, I came to them in their early 40s, and very precious. They brought me as a baby out to Mum’s sister’s house in Bray one Sunday afternoon and I was settled in a cot to sleep. My 7 year old cousin there had hay fever and was sneezing. Some time later when my mother came back into the room I started sneezing, and there was consternation as they feared I had caught a potentially dangerous respiratory bug. I clearly recall the sea of faces and voices around me, and having tons of bedding put in top of me so that I was sweltering and wanting it off me. Then my cousin came back into the room and started sneezing again (my mother hadn’t heard her sneezing earlier) and I immediately imitated her and started laughing, much to the relief of my parents. I was born with a sense of mischief, and a love of imitating people! For this reason I always hold that young children take in a hell of a lot more than adults credit them for.

My own mother had very early memories of her childhood, like the birth of her younger sister when she was two-she specifically remembered asking the maid (yes they had maids in 1920s), who was asked to distract the children did she knit the curtains, as she was closing them to “darken” the house for the imminent birth.

Another memory’s being in Dublin Airport Control Tower as a very young child, early 60s, in old terminal building and eating sausages with the staff. I was mesmerised by it all and it fostered a lifelong passion for aviation. My parents were friends of Tom Donovan, the then Chief Controller.

We went out to the airport frequently enough back then, as did many Dublin people. There was a great viewing balcony and everybody in those days waved there relatives off with various coloured scarves for identity. Going off in an airplane was like going up in space would be now, only business people (virtually all men then) could fly. Very rarely a wealthy relative might go to America to visit another relative, and it would be an occasion for extended family to see them off.

The various aircraft and attendant vehicles fascinated me, and I would go home and draw pictures of the Viscounts (later was delighted to be on one of last ones flying), Fokker Friendships, Super Constellations (they were in short service) with their radial engines, and the Boeing 707 jet. There was also a remarkable sight to be enjoyed, the so-called “pregnant-guppy”, a Carvair which ferried cars. It was some sight to see cars driving on board an airplane at Dublin Airport.

At a young age my father explained the basic principles of aerodynamics and how an airplane is controlled. When I began working, one of first things I did was learn to fly an aircraft.

I am for a long time convinced I remember being bathed in the kitchen sink. I even remember the view out the window beside the sink when it happened.

My mam insists its not possible - she only did it from 9 to 12 months of age.