My Best Childhood Memory

MY BEST CHILDHOOD MEMORY

Docrafts 31 Day Blog Prompt Day 25

Oh my! Doesn't time fly when you are having fun?  It's day 25 already.....only 6 more to do!!!!   

So today is blogging about my best childhood memory.

I'm really old you know .......honestly!  I have so many memories I don't know where to start, but I have thought long and hard about this and .....well! Here goes:

Like a lot of people, my childhood had it's ups and downs for many different reasons.  My favourite memory is when I was about 5 or 6 years old.  It was nearly Christmas. I want to describe out sitting room to you so that you get a picture of it in your mind for when I tell you the 'important' part of the memory. 

Our sitting room had a radio/record player in one corner of the room, and if you were standing facing it the sitting room door to the lobby was on the right and at right angles to the left was the door to the kitchen.  In those days we did not have a fitted carpet.  There was lino and on top of that a huge rug which left a border of the lino, which looked like wood........very highly polished all around the edge.  The rug was red with lots of other colours with a lot of pattern on it.


It was very much like this one:

To the right of the sitting room door to the lobby was our upright piano, which my sister and I both played, and then at right angles to the right of that was a fair sized sitting room window with lovely plants on the window ledge and white net curtains to the inside.  Below the window was our Sunday dining tabe and then to the far right of that an arm chair, which was part of a suite.........


Here is an image of the style and colour it was:

My mum had crotcheted covers for the arms and backs of the furniture.   Behind the armchair was a wooden standard lamp and the TV (We were one of the first in the street to have a TV). To put a date onto this it must have been about 1957/8.  

So now we are looking at the main wall in the sitting room to the right of the TV where the coal fire was.  A typical creamy tiled fireplace with a mantle shelf above it where my mum had her ornaments displayed.  She was really into Hummel figures and toby jugs too:  Something like these:

and

So at the other side of the fireplace was the other armchair and behind it was the display cabinet for all our fine china; and to the side of the armchair was my mother's sewing/crotcheting basket that had a lid, which when lifted had lovely pink quilting inside it, and was always being used.  In front of the fire was a rug which was mainly to protect the big rug from sparks from the open fire.

So in the centre of the room was the 3 seater settee, which also could be a bed (very rare in those days where we lived).

There you see the room.  Always spick and span.

Right! Now to the memory................

As I was about 5 or 6 years old at the time I had only the realisation of my mum and sister at home.  My dad was in the RAF and was stationed in Bahrein for a few years, only coming home on leave.  

One day I heard something or someone at the front door and I ran to see who it was.  I opened the door to find a strange looking man with straggly hair, tattoos and a funny looking bag.  He smiled at me and I shouted, "MAM, there's a man at the door"....and I ran to her quite scared!!

I ran into the sitting room and my mum went to see who was at the door.  There was a great commotion and she invited him in.  This is the first memory of meeting my brother, who was about 14 years older than me.  I had no recollection of him until that point in my life.

I found out he had been away for a few years with the Merchant Navy, sailing the world.  I slowly warmed to him and when I got over my shyness he handed me a box.  Inside the box was a miniature hoover......which worked, using batteries.

So the complete memory is:

Meeting my brother for the first time!

And: 

Hoovering the huge rug using the tiny miniature hoover, which took me the best part of a day even though my mum refused to move the furniture!!!!!!  

Here is an image of one similar to mine:

It was a little bit like this one...i.e. it had a bag but it wasn't pink and the bottom bit was not as big as the one here.  As a child I could lie down on the floor and the whole cleaner fitted into one hand (YES! it was tiny) and it worked!!!!!

and this is the full sized hoover my mum had at the time.

I found a lovely image of a 1950's sitting room, whilst looking for the hoover so I thought I would put it up here:

I can't believe how this is so like our sitting room was...............

For anyone who is interested, here are some items that was part of our very modern 1950's kitchen:

Gas cooker

Washing machine with mangle/wringer

So there you have it.  I think the 1950's was an idyllic time from a 5/6 year old's perspective.  I have some really vivid memories of that era.

Love and hugs

Annie xxx