Memories - or lack of

[Char]

I've just been looking through a load of my grandparents' old photographs and I found one of me when I was little holding a monkey. I have no recollection of having my photo taken with a monkey, the poor thing was dressed up in clothes. It made me wonder what else happened during my childhood that I can't remember.

I've also found a photo of me when I was about three feeding red squirrels in the Black Forest which I do remember, mainly I think because I was saying 'kommen Sie hier' which probably etched that particular episode into my brain.

Can you all remember all of your childhood?

[hughnique]

That's strange Char, I heard of a monkey the other day looking through some old photos, one of which was him being restrained by a young girl, he said he had no recollection of the incident either.

[Char]

That's strange Char, I heard of a monkey the other day looking through some old photos, one of which was him being restrained by a young girl, he said he had no recollection of the incident either.

[Doug]

Memories of childhood, ,most best forgotten.
But earliest was cadging lifts on american tanks going down to lepe beech just before D-Day, woke up on that morning and they were all gone, leaving boxes of chocolats and donuts in the ditches.
All from the nearby village had a feast.

[MAD87]

I have almost no memories of my life in London before the age of 11. Still, the 2 or 3 months per year I spent in Dublin are pretty clear. I didn't discover until after both parents were dead (when I was 42) what the likely reason was.

[DominicBest]

I have a very early memory of living in the village I left when I was four years old. I’m fairly sure I don’t remember the incident but I do remember remembering it several times over the years.
When I was a teenager we often used to travel from Tresillian into Truro along a small back road. My parents would usually ask if I remembered seeing a monkey there when I was small. I have never had any recollection of any there.

[Blaze]

Funnily enough, one of my earliest memories was my first visit to France. My sister hadn't yet been born so I must have only been about 4. We stayed at a village called Wissant between Calais and Boulogne at a little hotel run by a Welshman, Taffy Davies, opposite the church. I remember a black wall, built on the beach by the Germans, and someone catching a big black lobster. There were also big jellyfish, possibly Portuguese men o'war because I remember them being like bathing caps with legs

I went back there a few years ago to see if anything looked familiar. The Welshman's son was now running the hotel and he looked us up in the old registers. Sure enough, there I was with my mother, my aunt, my cousin and my brother. The hotel had been enlarged since my first visit, and a new storey added. Otherwise, little seemed to have changed in the centre. The black wall was still there, but tipping over in the sand. My mother told me I used to kick a football against the church walls but I can't remember that !

[hughnique]

I have a very early memory of living in the village I left when I was four years old. I’m fairly sure I don’t remember the incident but I do remember remembering it several times over the years.
When I was a teenager we often used to travel from Tresillian into Truro along a small back road. My parents would usually ask if I remembered seeing a monkey there when I was small. I have never had any recollection of any there.

This Monkey was it dressed up in human clothes and holding a small child in it's arms

[Sparkle]

I only vaguely remember doing this but my mum embarrassed me several times by telling others which is possibly why I remember what I do. I was at the time around 5-6 yrs old. My mum was a nurse and worked nights at the local hospital so slept by day. She was woken up one late afternoon by some screaming children. I had got some school friends to come into our shed in the yard and decided that their clocks were dirty and needed washing so I'd got a bowl of water and a flannel gone into the shed closing the door behind me and commenced with the cleaning - I'd managed to get some soap in their eyes hence the screaming. Oh la la what a performance - funnily enough after that I had to get used to playing with ted & golly and had an imaginary friend called Mary

[Char]

I've got lots of other memories and a lot of the old photos I'm going through are of things I remember - but I wouldn't have thought holding a monkey would have been a regular occurrence so I would have thought that would have stuck in my mind. Hey ho.

I do wish they'd written on some of the photos where, when they were taken and who was in the photo - there are photos of what I assume to be family members who I have no idea who they are, and there's no-one I can ask. Which has made me decide to go through all my piccies and make notes so at least my children know the history behind the piccie.