Early Memories

These are pretty much all the fragments I have of my early life. I have no idea what order these happened in, except when someone or an animal is part of them.

We were burgled once. They stole our Microwave and a load of other stuff that got dumped in the valley at the side of the house. I was first downstairs in the morning and I sat for some time in the front room watching TV after going in the kitchen for my breakfast. I didn't notice the hole in the window where they'd got in, or the missing Microwave. Our dog (Sheba) was old at the time and I think this spurred my parents into getting another dog (Alex) who would be my parents dog for much of my childhood.

Speaking of Sheba.... I came downstairs one morning and found Sheba twitching at the bottom of the stairs. I think she'd had a stroke or something. She was very old at this time. I don't remember any emotions from this happening, just that it happened. I guess my parents took her to the vets after this and we never saw her again. This is perhaps the only memory I have of Sheba.

Once I was in my Nan's house watching 'Stingray' on the TV. I think my nan picked us up from school, particularly primary school and we'd spend quite a lot of time in her house. I have few memories of primary school. They did a fare every summer and I remember once getting my picture done on a computer. It was printed out on dot matrix printer, must have been about 32*32 pixels and was amazing at the time. I also managed to buy a sword at one of the summer fares. A decorative one, but still a full sized sword. I was probably 10 or so at the time.

There was a raffle at primary school once. I won and had the option of a VHS of either 'the princess bride' or 'project X'. I chose the princess bride...I seem to remember teachers trying to push me toward Project X. Or vice versa.

My Nan's house had a central air heating system. If you crouched by one of the vents upstairs you could hear everything going on downstairs. I listened into lots of gron up conversations like that. Once some relatives came to my Nan's house. I think distant uncles or something. I was trying to draw a boat shape because I wanted to draw a cool futuristic boat. One of the relatives offered to help and drew a pretty impressive sailboat. I was upset because it wasn't the simple boat shape I wanted.

Possibly at the same family event, or more likely a different one I had a toy car that had a pull back action...you pulled it back and it went forward. The sound it made upset me so I asked my dad to make it stop making the noise. He did, but by removing the pull back action. I was not impressed.

My Nan used to make dens for me in the front garden by draping blankets over a clothes horse. I used to throw action men figures out of the upstairs windows with plastic bags attached as parachutes. She used to make me...I think scrambled egg with cheese in on toast. I could draw a floorplan of the house they lived in, but I can't remember her face.

My Grandparents on my dad's side...I remember even less about. They drove a Nissan(?) that was usually parked in their back yard, which was fully enclosed. I think it had a plastic roof over it. They had 2 dogs, with long hair. They walked them on a field that I think now has houses on it. Their front room was only for formal events / show and they always sat in their back room. The layout upstairs was a bit odd with a bathroom right at the back of the house with a long corridor that went the length of the main bedroom to get to it from the stairs at the front of the house.

I spent a whole summer in spain with them when I was 11 or 12. I had a gameboy with a cartridge that had 32 games on it. One was a simple tank game. Sometime during this holiday I went to the set of 'Eldorado' with a BBC Journalist who was staying in the apartment complex my grandparents lived in.

One of the first computer programs I wrote was a save file editor for XCom: enemy unknown on the PC. This must have been much later than other memories in this list. I still lived at home, but we got our first PC when I was in College. It was a 486 DX2 66. I remember that because shortly after we bought it the first Pentium was released. We got it from Dixons in the town center. In a big tower case. Dad had to draw 2 Grand out of the bank to pay for it in cash.

Before the PC we had an Atari. My sister loved a game called 'boulder dash' on it. I don't remember much about this computer other than you could write basic on it.

In my parents house there was a boiler cupboard at the end of the landing. My room was opposite this cupboard at the other end of the landing. My sisters room was next to it. It had a hole in the door where I'd thrown a diecast metal toy at my sister in a fit of rage. I used to have real problems with controlling my temper and would have meltdowns which my sister would encourage / induce for her entertainment. This was probably an early sign of my autism. Arguments / shouting may have been a common thing in our household. I remember my dad once ripping the power cable out of my sister's TV during an argument.

Dad brought things back from work for us quite often. he was a bin man in the days when they were allowed to just...take things from the rubbish. I remember getting a stylophone at one point.

One christmas I was getting a load of MASK toys. I went into my parents bedroom and opened them all up so I could see what they were. I think I got severely told off for that. Thinking about it we must have been fairly well off at this point because as well as the 'Rhino' which was a pretty big toy I think I got the base and maybe a couple of other sets as well. Can't have been cheap. I don't think I appreciated how privileged we were at the time. I think few children do.

I once stole a load of toys, battlebeasts I think they were from the corner shop near us. I think I hid them but my mum found them. I had to return them.

I also remember my dad storming out of the house during one argument with my mum. He disappeared for a while....hours? And when he came back my mum berated him for being dramatic. I heard this from my bedroom. My parents were incredibly young. My eldest daughter is just turning 18 and I'm 45. My parents were 34 when their daughter turned 18. They were in their 20s for much of my childhood. I wish I could remember more about them from my childhood.

my bedroom was the boxroom at the front of the house. At some point this room was extended back over the stairs creating a cabin bed with 2 large cupboards under it. My room was never tidy, always piles of stuff on the floor. My sister moved out when she was 18 or so. I think I moved into her bedroom at this point.