Not a sound from the pavement

[venta]

This week's stack of library books included Arthur & George. On the train in to work this morning, the first chapter introduced me to both the gentlemen.

One of the things which came up in George's description is that he doesn't have a particular memory that he regards as "his first memory", and had never considered that he ought, or that it was normal, to have such a thing.

I have never been aware of having an earliest memory. I have very, very vague memories of visiting my Nana, who died when I was 3. They are so vague that I wouldn't even really call them memories, more impressions - and even then, I can't be totally sure that they haven't been formed from me being told about her when I was older.

I do wonder that one of my difficulties in pin-pointing an earliest memory is lack of reference points. People often say that they remember being in such-and-such a house, and they know that the family moved from that house when they were two. Or they remember a holiday their parents took them on at a certain age.

We didn't move house when I was a child, and our family holidays were (and still are!) always in the same place. Obviously there were trips to particular places that would come with a date attached, but whenever the mother says "do you remember..." the answer is usually "no", unless it happened much later in life.

I have the fixed points of the deaths of my Nana, and also of my Grandad (when I was 6). I have reasonably clear memories of Grandad, so I certainly have memories from before the age of 6 1/2. Most other things which can be pinned to a time - playgroup, starting school etc belong in the vague-impression category. Perhaps when people talk about their earliest memories, they also are relating only a vague sense of an event rather than what I might now call a memory of something.

Do you have an earliest memory? If so, how old were you when it was formed? How can you be sure it's the earliest?

Comments

[triskellian]

I remember being on the sidelines at a rugby match (which presumably my dad was playing in). There was a pushchair, but I don't know if it was my pushchair which I'd got out of to wander around, or if it had my brother (21 months younger than me) in it. There is some family disagreement about exactly when my dad stopped playing rugby, so this one will never be resolved ;-)

I remember remembering being sent somewhere (next door neighbours? grandparents? not sure) when my mum was in hospital having my brother (my dad may have been at work, or with her, I've no idea), but it's faded now.

I remember playing on a landing with bannisters, which feels in the memory as if it's my home, but isn't the house we moved to just before my fourth birthday, or any other house I have later recollections of.

...So the only one of those which is definitely dateable is the one I don't strictly remember any more. The clearest early memory which I can definitely date is rather later than any of those: the aforementioned house move; I remember my mum's car pulling onto the drive, I remember my brother and me running around the circular route between three rooms which interconnected, and I remember eating pot noodles in the front room - later my bedroom - as our first meal there. But after that, it's back to vague impressions for at least the next year - nothing else until infant school.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I agree with your younger self: running in a circular route through rooms with multiple doors is brilliant :)

[triskellian]

Sadly*, blocking up one of those doors was one of the first things my parents did when we moved in, so that may have been the only time we got to do it :-(

(*Well, not so sadly for my brother, whose room was the middle one in the route, and was sufficiently tiny that if both doors had remained there would have been nowhere to put his bed.)

We did later invent a new circular route which involved jumping out of my (ground floor; bungalow) bedroom window, running round to the front door, and going into my room, but apparently this wasn't tolerated for very long ;-)

[lnr]

We were just at my bosses house last night, and I was doing exactly this! Though admittedly I didn't run, I walked, but it was still brilliant. And I commented as much and then learned there's a second loop you can do in the same house because they have two staircases! Oh to be a small child in that house!

In terms of memories I remember a Play School day out in the woods running round playing cops and robbers aged around 4, and I remember some things from infant school - though not many, but I don't seem to have anything of toddler age that sticks out as a real memory, only things my parents have told me, so perhaps the Play School one *is* the earliest.

[vicarage.livejournal.com]

My Wokingham house had an indoor circular route which I loved as an adult. You could keep in antiphase with guests as the wandered looking for you!

I have an 'official' first memory in family lore about a caravan on a clifftop, but no other memories I could date. I always feel cheated that I can't remember the Moon landing when I was 16 months, as dammit I might have been shown it (though unlikely as it was in the small hours)

[glittertigger]

You can do this is our current house; it's one of the things I love about it. You are welcome to come and play :)