Forum Topic

Early memories

A number of us will remember the first ascent of Everest. What is youe earliest world memory? Mine is the death of the King.

Graham Weeks ● 6839d32 Comments

Sad about Sir Edmond Hillary.My earliet memory is of the excellent film Snow White and the Seven small persons - I was about 5 years old and I'd pee myself with fright when the wicked witch appeared, but cheered, pantomime style, when the prince came...a la "Some day my Prince will come...".  Happy days.  ;-o

Gerry Tan ● 6839d

Winston Churchill's funeral......went on for ever

Penny Crocker ● 6839d

I was at The Aldwych to see it.

Graham Weeks ● 6839d

This thread is really going to flush out people's ages!

James de Vivenot ● 6839d

A visit with my Dad to see the damage caused by the first V2 flying bomb to land in UK in September 1944. We visited the scene the day after.It happened in Staveley Road, Chiswick.In the months before I witnessed the pilotless V1 "doddlebug" bombs flying overhead with their single red light on..but fortunately with the engine still running! ;0(

Jim Lawes ● 6839d

London trams. Rationing. Festival of Britain, Skylon, Dome of Discovery. TV & coronation - like Churchill's funeral - boring. First day of school, didn't teach us much - had to go back the following day.Can anyone remember when High Street and Bond Street were made one-way roads?

Alan Brainsby ● 6839d

V1.  Remember it well, Bombed out in 1940s, Count 3 when the Engine STOPPED!!AND THEN DUCK!!                           

Hugh Telford ● 6839d

Typically the Germans are still producing the V2 but under its development name of A4. See the Audi website.

Alan Brainsby ● 6839d

Going shopping in Acton High Street in 1939 just before WW2.There used to be a Grocers Shop names Hawkins at the corner with Crown Street with a neon sign of a bird meant to be a hawk with the on-off-on effect of flapping wings.607 Trolleybuses slipping quietly and CLEANLY by.

Colin Vaughan ● 6839d

"607 Trolleybuses slipping quietly and CLEANLY by".So where was the coal-fired power station that generated the electricity?  Chiswick?

Alan Brainsby ● 6839d

Raymond Glendenning,John Arlott, Denis Compton, Len Hutton, Frank Swift, Tommy Lawton, Dome of Discovery, BBC Home Service, BBC Light Programme, BBC Third Programme, Mount Everest headline in newspaper 2/6/53, Mum's washing mangle, Dentist's laughing gas ,  Clem Attlee Prime Minister, Egg powder, Air raid sirens......, Dick Barton, Gilbert Harding,and Paul Temple and the Vandyke affair on the radio!

Jim Lawes ● 6839d

Come on Alan don't be so pedantic. So we know there is a power station of some sort somewhere. But at LOCAL level it was and still is clean. Anyway if you want to start an enviromental argument start another thread. We were talking memories here!

Colin Vaughan ● 6838d

Two-Way Family Favourites on a Sunday Lunchtime, Billy Cotton Band Show Wakey-Wakey!!!!!Old Mother Riley and her Daughter Kitty, plus Max Miller at the Shepherds Bush Empire. The 'Dim out' at the end of 1944, when the Luftwaffer ceased to be a threat.Didn't matter with the V1,and V2, they would come whatever.

Colin Vaughan ● 6838d

Colin:I agree I was being a little pedantic, but only slightly mind.To my knowledge Ealing didn't have any power stations generating electricity for London Transport or any of its incarnations. They were in lesser boroughs in places known as Neasden, Stonebridge/Wembley, Lots Road (Chelsea), Goldhawk Road (Chiswick), for example.Do you remember route 607 being called the "Banana line" as the trolleybuses always came in threes? Or does that belong to the humour thread? %-)

Alan Brainsby ● 6838d

Actually Alan the power for the Trolleybuses, the Trams, by then only in South London, and the Underground, all came from Lots Road Power Station. There was one small Power Station in Ealing a DC Station in Popes Lane, but that was for domestic consumption. Actually I don't mind going off the thread somewhat, not like some of our friends in W4,one or two of whom seem to get paranoid not only about thread deviations, but also about any general subject not directly involving local issues.Poor things they should get out more!

Colin Vaughan ● 6838d

Jim Lawes ● 6838d

My Fair Lady at the London Palladium with the revolving stage.  I was VERY young - less than three apparently  - and was taken because I had been good at my first visit to the dentist. It was my favourite record.First news event: Churchill's funeral.

Sara Nathan ● 6838d

It is interesting to read these especially the WWII ones. I used to have customers who told me their WWI memories. All are gone now. I am rapidly losing my customers who fled Nazi Austria or Germany too. Tempus fugit.

Graham Weeks ● 6838d

I went to a private view this week for the artist, Milein Cosmin. She fled Nazi Austria at the age of 16, 70 years ago and has been in Hampstead pretty much ever since - and still drawing and selling at 86. And, though organised by the Jewish Museum, the exhibition was at the Austrian Embassy or cultural section. Anita Wallfish (sp?) another refugee, but post-camps, was there too. So there are still some about.

Sara Nathan ● 6838d

First personal memories include going to playgroup in Northfields Ave (near the library) & seeing 'Winnie the Pooh' in the cinema oppsosite, both when I was 2 or 3.First news memory is of Man walking on the moon.

Lynn Clark ● 6838d

I regularly see this man who is the same vintage.http://www.amazon.co.uk/Living-Enemy-Secret-Life-Nazis/dp/1843581426/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1200158678&sr=8-1

Graham Weeks ● 6838d

Farthings (just), ration books (went on long after the war), appearing on stage, Wimbledon, (got a 2d bar of chocolate from Robinson Crusoe herself).

Peter Wright ● 6838d

"...appearing on stage, Wimbledon, (got a 2d bar of chocolate from Robinson Crusoe herself)."Tell us more Peter, please!

Gerry Tan ● 6838d

And you obviously loved the book.I must read it.

Sara Nathan ● 6838d

Very little to tell Gerry, or very little memory left of the panto I should say. Some very young children were taken on stage to do silly things, like moving our hands like fish in the water, then we got the chocolate.I still remember her legs though ;-).

Peter Wright ● 6838d

It is an amazing story one could not make up which I cannot recommend too strongly.

Graham Weeks ● 6838d

"I still remember her legs though."Did she slap her thighs, in true panto style and say something like:"I'll go to London to make my fortune!" or"I'll search for that poor young girl and rescue her from the clutches of that wicked Baron Hard Up!"

Gerry Tan ● 6837d

Hard Up? That's a bit of innuendo.

Alan Brainsby ● 6837d

No not really Alan - no innuendo intended. My panto Baron HardUp was the horrid lord of the Manor who'd lost his money and made innocent peasants work for peanuts."Oh no he didn't!", I hear you say."Oh yes he did!", I shout in reply.

Gerry Tan ● 6837d

Sitting in my pushchair and being wheeled down the Askew Road, and passing some kerfuffle in the street.  I must of asked my Mother what it was as I can remember being told "it's funny men making a television program".It was years later that I worked out it was the Monty Python team filming :)

Gavin Gilbert ● 6837d

Bit like the present government, eh?

Alan Brainsby ● 6837d

Mine would be the Queens silver jubilee.....big street party.

Andy Wright ● 6833d