What are your earliest memories?

igCorcaigh · 30-10-2019 08:59PM

It's a funny thing.

When I think of my earliest memories, there only seems to be a view of what I was seeing. No emotional context, or what I was feeling. Just an image.

30-10-2019 08:59PM

My first day at school is a strong and fairly complete memory. I was 4, and it was a fifteen minute walk from house to school. About a third way there I pulled my mother out on the road when I saw a black curly haired dead dog on the road, with dark blood poured out of the mouth. I was distressed why the dog was just left there, that no doctor had been called etc. I wanted to examine it closely to see what had happened it, and I said I would be a dog doctor with an ambulance when I grew up. That doctor had belonged to the local paediatrician & Mum took it upon herself to inform her, on her way home after leaving me.

I entered the school wearing a white poodle mask and told my mother to go away and not be embarrassing me, I was grown up enough to cope. The teacher asked me my name, and I invented one on the spot, just for mischief and I thought it would be hilarious hearing her make an eejit of herself. “Foxy, that’s my name” and the poor teacher was calling me by that name half the day until I felt a bit guilty and thought I better tell the truth.

I absolutely hated being surrounded by whingeing kids looking for their mammies. I absolutely despised them and couldn’t understand their distress. I was frustrated too that the teacher didn’t get own to actual teaching as she went around the chaotic classroom. I told the quiet glum boy beside me “I’m bored” and he quipped back “you'd Better get used to it because you’re here for the rest of your life. That reality was abhorrent to me. Next day I was very relieved when we got down to learning. My mother had already given me a great head start with basic literacy, and my father showed me how to read maps and get spatially orientated. When JFK died I knew where America was, tons of miles beyond the west wall of the garden! My father had a huge map of the world in the house, placed in north wall of a room so that I really did grasp the layout of the world around me. Being an only child, my parents could take all their time showing me stuff and how it works, and it made me ultra curious to this day.

30-10-2019 09:01PM

igCorcaigh wrote: »

Interesting...
Can memories form that young?

I had a random chat with a woman in a bar recently who claimed to remember being in the womb. She didn't seem like the sanest person to be honest.

Interesting overlap! Thats what many people say about me too

dartboardio · 30-10-2019 09:02PM

I think I was as young as 18 months or two years old I remember a vague image of crawling on the ground through the hallway, we lived in a bungalow at the time. My mam was getting ready to go out and I remember my auntie was coming to visit, and I looked back at the front door and crawled really fast away from it as baby would do messing,

So weird being able to think back to then.

igCorcaigh · 30-10-2019 09:03PM

Wow, that's a lot of memories for a four year old.

cj maxx · 30-10-2019 09:04PM

I have memories from hospital, I was about 2 1/2 -3.

igCorcaigh · 30-10-2019 09:04PM

dartboardio wrote: »

I think I was as young as 18 months or two years old I remember a vague image of crawling on the ground through the hallway, we lived in a bungalow at the time. My mam was getting ready to go out and I remember my auntie was coming to visit, and I looked back at the front door and crawled really fast away from it. So weird being able to think back to being a baby!

Wow! That's very early!

igCorcaigh · 30-10-2019 09:06PM

cjmc wrote: »

I have memories from hospital, I was about 2 1/2 -3.

How can you put a time on it?
I have very early memories of being in hospital too.

I must ask my parents when was it.
I'm thinking maybe four.

dartboardio · 30-10-2019 09:07PM

igCorcaigh wrote: »

Wow! That's very early!

That probably explains my excellent memory! Haha

30-10-2019 09:08PM

igCorcaigh wrote: »

How can you put a time on it?
I have very early memories of being in hospital too.

I must ask my parents when was it.
I'm thinking maybe four.

God now you people say it so do I. I have memories of a nurse putting her mouth cover thing on my before an OP - which of course I hope she changed for the OP - but the only OP I can think of was having my lazy eye straightened. Which must have been what? 2? 3? What age do they normally make that OP?

This thread is messing with my head!

30-10-2019 09:08PM

My first Christmas memory is of waking up in the small hours and seeing a miniature piano beside me, unwrapped. I started hitting the keys and was delighted with the sound. Was born in March, so I guess it would have been when I was 1 year10 months. The following Christmas I was given a plastic saxophone, which I loved. Sadly it got broken during Christmas dinner. No, I never became a musician! The Christmas after that I got what I asked for, a toy petrol pump, which my mother had to go to great trouble to find. I adored that thing and used to bring it to Mass and give e everybody petrol into their side during holy communion!

igCorcaigh · 30-10-2019 09:11PM

This thread is a little bit heartbreaking

cj maxx · 30-10-2019 09:13PM

igCorcaigh wrote: »

How can you put a time on it?
I have very early memories of being in hospital too.

I must ask my parents when was it.
I'm thinking maybe four.

They can't remember exactly. I hadn't started school , they think about 2-3

Twister2 · 30-10-2019 09:15PM

Losing a toy on a London bus

Was about 4 or 5

igCorcaigh · 30-10-2019 09:15PM

[Deleted User] wrote: »

God now you people say it so do I. I have memories of a nurse putting her mouth cover thing on my before an OP - which of course I hope she changed for the OP - but the only OP I can think of was having my lazy eye straightened. Which must have been what? 2? 3? What age do they normally make that OP?

This thread is messing with my head!

I went for an operation for a lazy eye too.
I remember the fear of being waken up to go down a dark corridor for x Ray with no one around.

I also remember yorkie Easter eggs.
Possibly late 70s

igCorcaigh · 30-10-2019 09:20PM

cjmc wrote: »

They can't remember exactly. I hadn't started school , they think about 2-3

I think 2 or 3 could possibly be my early memories too.

I remember being with my mother naked in the shower, I remember her laughing about how I described her nipples as cherries.

igCorcaigh · 30-10-2019 09:23PM

Twister2 wrote: »

Losing a toy on a London bus

Was about 4 or 5

Getting lost from my parents in a shoe shop in Cork.

Absolute terror.

No idea what age.

30-10-2019 09:24PM

igCorcaigh wrote: »

Getting lost from my parents in a shoe shop in Cork.

Absolute terror.

No idea what age.

Ah I do this just for kicks these days. My Son is 5. I take him into shops and lose him. Just to see what he will do

igCorcaigh · 30-10-2019 09:29PM

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Ah I do this just for kicks these days. My Son is 5. I take him into shops and lose him. Just to see what he will do

Oh lol!!
Winner!

Galwayguy35 · 30-10-2019 09:32PM

First day at school Sept 1979, would have been about 4.

Have a few hazy memories before that but that one is the earliest clear memory.

BrianD3 · 30-10-2019 09:44PM

I'm in my 40s now and my early memories are mostly about family holidays and cars. I have a very vague mental image of the interior of a house that we stayed in when I believe I was aged 2 and a half. I believe the house was in Rosslare. The next holiday was about a year later in Nerja, Spain and I have many clear memories of it backed up with photos and details on what year it was. I remember a number of details that are not in the photos. I also remember my time in playschool quite clearly which would have been at around the same age.

Of course I can't actually remember 40+ years directly back to when I was that young, I am merely remembering the last time I remembered/thought about the events which would have happened frequently from a young age, storing the memories. I have completely forgotten stuff that happened much later on (e.g when I was 13) because the events weren't remarkable and I didn't think about them for a while and the memories were lost.

It's good to keep records of things while you can still remember them. I did that a couple of years after finishing my university degree - I wrote down my memories of funny incidents etc. 20 years have now passed and I would probably have forgotten a lot of it had I not written it down.

peasant · 30-10-2019 09:44PM

I remember being thoroughly upset and disappointed when my parents sold this lovely car to some stranger because they had bought a poxy new Renault R4 ...I was three and a bit at the time

opel-rekord-p1-05.jpg?i

well the Opel was a rust bucket and needed extensive repairs...but it was so much better looking to a three year old than a beige R4

wiggle16 · 30-10-2019 10:21PM

Deleted User wrote: »

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.

I remember bathing in the sink too but I'm not exactly sure what age I was. I would have had to be very, very young though, because it would have had to be before my brother was born and there's 22 months between us.

donspeekinglesh · 30-10-2019 10:56PM

igCorcaigh wrote: »

It's a funny thing.

When I think of my earliest memories, there only seems to be a view of what I was seeing. No emotional context, or what I was feeling. Just an image.

All my memories are like that, minus the image - I have aphantasia. I may also have SDAM (Severely Deficient Autobiographical Memory), my first definite memory is when I was 7 and I can't remember anything for a few years after. None of my memories have feelings attached, I can remember that certain things happened, or I did things etc, but the act of remembering doesn't bring any feelings with it.

30-10-2019 11:29PM

donspeekinglesh wrote: »

All my memories are like that, minus the image - I have aphantasia. I may also have SDAM (Severely Deficient Autobiographical Memory), my first definite memory is when I was 7 and I can't remember anything for a few years after. None of my memories have feelings attached, I can remember that certain things happened, or I did things etc, but the act of remembering doesn't bring any feelings with it.

Do you mean that when you remember something from childhood that you can't recall how you felt at that time? Do most people tend to remember the feelings?

My earliest memory is from about the age of 3 1/2 and I don't know how I felt during that time. At all.

4Ad · 30-10-2019 11:35PM

About 4, (1972) my sisters went off to mass with my Da and I had to stay at home.I was hysterical..
We lived in a maisonette, 66 Balfour Road Ilford , Essex...
That address came into my head no problem..

Cant rem what I had for lunch these days..

De Danann · 30-10-2019 11:45PM

First day of Junior Infants. Getting the little sticker with my name on it put on my school jumper and a matching one on my coat hook down the back of the room. The smell of sambos and orange squash in that room. All very clear to me.

Very few distinct memories between that one and the end of primary school. Except some memories of my utter hatred for homework!

Rubberlegs · 30-10-2019 11:57PM

I remember being pushed in a red and white striped buggy, I could only have been about 2 or 3 so around 1975.
I remember how upset my mother was when Elvis died and remember when Marc Bolan died.
I remember what a little wagon I was hiding in supermarkets and watching my mother frantically looking for me.
I can remember my 5th birthday when I asked when was everyone going to sing Happy Birthday to me, my Grandad died that day and everyone was distracted.
Being brought to the hospital to see my new sister, Dad had given me a summer dress and long green woolly socks with reindeers on to wear.
Sneaking back downstairs to listen to Top of the Pops outside the sitting room door.
Holidays in Wexford.
Finding True Detective magazines in a shed at my grandparents and hiding out reading as much as I could at age 7ish.

TuringBot47 · 30-10-2019 11:59PM

Being in some hall in Mosney holiday camp (70's) (before it was converted into an immigrant camp) with some indoor roundabout and a piano in it ?

4Ad · 31-10-2019 12:00AM

Rubberlegs wrote: »

I remember being pushed in a red and white striped buggy, I could only have been about 2 or 3 so around 1975.
I remember how upset my mother was when Elvis died and remember when Marc Bolan died.
I remember what a little wagon I was hiding in supermarkets and watching my mother frantically looking for me.
I can remember my 5th birthday when I asked when was everyone going to sing Happy Birthday to me, my Grandad died that day and everyone was distracted.
Being brought to the hospital to see my new sister, Dad had given me a summer dress and long green woolly socks with reindeers on to wear.
Sneaking back downstairs to listen to Top of the Pops outside the sitting room door.
Holidays in Wexford.
Finding True Detective magazines in a shed at my grandparents and hiding out reading as much as I could at age 7ish.

Brilliant vivid post.. Forgotten them magazines..

What are your earliest memories?

Comments