Your Very First Memory?

[DTCwordfan]

Building on Tilly's great thread last night, http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/ChatterBank/Question1379783.html

what was your very first memory and what age were you?

My first one was in Scotland, staying in a hotel near Loch Katrine, playing 'hopscotch' on the tartan carpet in reception - it seemed massive. Also, on that trip, I can remember going on the wee steamer that went up the Loch from the Trossachs Pier. I was just over 3 and a half, my eldest sister being one and a bit.

Over to you.

[cupid04]

Sitting on the back door steps lacing up roller skates on me feet and not being able to stand up without going base over apex...Would have been about 4 or 5!

[DSJ]

Mine was being pushed in my pram when it was raining. There were little puddles on the waterproof cover & l remember drawing shapes in them. I must have been under two.

[DTCwordfan]

what age, Piper?

[grasscarp]

Around 3 years old in an aeroplane seat being given a sweet for take off and some memories followed during the time we were living in Egypt.

[Baldric]

Sorry, can't remember!

[AlwaysConfused]

I was in the garden with a colouring in book. My mum said to someone else (a male, neighbour perhaps?) 'she colours so nicely, she doesn't even go over the edges'. It was a sunny day and I was about 3. I remember feeling very pleased with myself. I didn't even know that I wasn't supposed to colour over the edges, so I conscientiously tried not to from there on.

[Stephen_G]

We went to Anglesey on Holiday and we were staying in a Caravan on a Park that had a very bumpy field. My Dad sat me on his knee and let me steer the car over the bumps. I was about 3 at the time. I don't remember a biblical Thunderstorm that had people running for the on-site Cafe because it was the only brick-built building on the Site!

[sandyRoe]

I remember my sister telling me our mother had gone to hospital to pick a baby. I was two and a half when my brother was born.

[jourdain2]

About 18 months old. Being carried by Mum to the toilet - what I remember is that I reached out my fingers to the door jamb afterwards (interesting that the memory triggers the whole sequence) as she shut the door firmly on my fingers! Agonizing!

Also interesting that my grandchildren are still in 'Night nappies' at up to 2 years - if we could do it so should they!) Plenty of memories after that, perhaps a shock triggers recollect mechanism?

[paulllambert]

Dad took me out in the car. He went into the bank, and gave me a couple of coppers to spend in the sweet shop next door. When he came out of the bank, he jumped in the car, and went home without me. He'd forgotten he'd taken me in the first place. I think I was four.

[DTCwordfan]

that happened with friends of mine....took my goddaughter with her little mates to the "Happy Throw-Up" (Happy Eater - remember the logo?) on the Hog's Back, near Farnham, for her 4th birthday. When they came to leave, they forgot the General Rose quote ("I counted them out - and then they got lost").

They got all the way back to Shalford (SE Guildford), when they realised that they were one short! Poor little gal.....

[bibblebub]

Your very first memory will be false, no matter how much you'll say that you can remember it so vividly. It always is.

[sandyRoe]

Will Cameron's child be traumatised having been left behind in a pub?

[DTCwordfan]

That's a bit radical, bibblebub - where did you scrape that one up from?

[woofgang]

Sitting on grass on the sunshine having a ball rolled to me. I couldn't walk at the time.

[Dizmo]

23rd June 1991 at 8:12am. I remember walking out of the door to go to school but couldn't remember putting my shoes on or even having my breakfast. At 8:12am I said to myself "I now remember everything". Apparently that morning I'd had a huge fall out with my brother and father and refused to speak to them. As soon as it got to 8:12 I wasn't aware of the argument that happened 5 minutes before.

[maggiebee]

Remember pinching my brothers' ration books and getting sweets. Caused ructions at home!

[bibblebub]

I always remember someone on the radio saying that every time you remember something you modify that memory based on how you are feeling mentally at the time

As if to prove that, last year I watched a film that I had only seen once in the late 1980's but could remember very clearly that the scene showing behind the opening credits was very dramatic. After 25 years of knowing exactly what I had seen, a viewing of the film showed that what I remember as taking the full couple of minutes for the credits actually took less than 10 seconds of it and was so pedestrian compared to what I remembered that I can't believe that my memory could have failed so miserably.

That was an accidental experiment - watching a film once, remembering it as often as you want, and then viewing it after a couple of decades - but is one which is objective and which anyone could repeat if they have the patience.