Age Of Innocents. Well..almost ;) (Childhood Memories)

Member Name: yahtonie

Product:	Childhood Memories
Date:	16/01/04 (198 review reads)
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These arn't in any order as to be honest they all rate highly in my memories.

1, Staying over my nan's for the whole of the summer holidays. This was a part of my life I will always remember. Every summer my mum would drop off me, my sister and brother to my nan's and we would spend the whole of the six odd weeks playing silly buggers with my four other cousins and the rest of the kids down the street where my nan lived. She lived in a dead end road and back in the day (about a decade ago) there weren't many cars so us kids had the run of the street. It always seemed that the summers back then were always hot and it never rained. Our favourite game to play was 'Please Mother May I?'.

This was a fab game where one person stood at the top of the road and the rest of use took it in turn to get as close to them as possible by asking if we could move. It was a funny game as the person would say yes, but in a certain way, like doing the 'milk round'. You had to run up and around them while saying milkmilkmilk really fast! The person then would say stop with their eyes closed and hopefully you didn't end up further away then you start. Another one was 'lamp post' You had to do how ever many they told you by laying on the road, mark where your head reached to and then done it again. There was also 'frog leaps' and many other ones which were sometimes just made up on the spot. And God help you if you didn't ask 'Please Mother May I?' otherwise you would have to go back to the beginning! Brilliant game which use to have us all bend double in stitches as our fellow member would have to do the most stupid things.

2, Playing in the 'back field' before the harvest. Two of my cousins lived in the same round as my nan and behind their house was a hay field. Oh, the hours of fun we use to have rolling about in the hay, making crop circles and building homes with a little corridoors le
ading into the living rooms. We were pretty fearless as kids and would stay and hid in the field even if the farmer came out with his hunting gun! Blimey, how many times we nearly got caught by the farmer and did get caught by my nan when she would come out to find us to come in for dinner. Ive never been grounded so many times in my life!

3, Playing the the back field during harvest. This is possibly the most stupid thing that Ive ever done. Me and my older cousin Mark would wait by the hole in the hedges and when the farmer in his combineharvester would turn around we would run out into the field and hide in the new cut hay. We would then lay there waiting for him to take a second pass, inches from where we would lay, and, when he drove off, we would stuff as much hay into a bin bag as we could for the hundreds of rabbits my nan had! Christ, looking back, I would wet myself if I ever got that close to a combineharvester! Mind you, we use to tell my nan that we brought it from a farm shop down the road otherwise she would of murdered us! It meant that the money for the hay would go into mine and Marks pocket for the hundreds of Whopper bars we would eventually consume over the following weeks. Ah, great business minds we both had!

4, Playing in the back field after harvest. This is when the most fun could be had. After harvest the mountains of hay would be wound up in the huge big hay bales which would provide hours of entertainment for all us kids. Dont know how I did it but some how we would climb on the top of the bales and try to jump from one to another, or try to ride them by running on them. Scary stuff, especially if you got stuck in the netting surrounding them! I think my brother(who was about five or six back then) had the worst time as he was too short to get on and off them and many-a-time did he nearly get run over by a fast moving hay bale with sevenor more kids all running on it! I remember one summer when we were playing on them t
hat we spotted a man walking towards us. DID WE RUN! Thats the first time that I ever felt real fear! It turn out to be my uncle with his pool cue! LOL!

5, The annual trip to Walton-On-The-Naze. This is where the whole family would pinch a bus from my dad's work place every year and we would spend the whole day down at the Naze swimming in the sea, eating candy baby dummies (which never got totally eaten either from getting dropped in the sand or tangled in one's hair!), candyfloss, whilst spending hours on the rides on the pier (and a few tears and feet stamping from yours truly after getting lost in the glass maze!). After would we would go to a local pet store to look at the giant snails which eventually we pursuaded my aunt to buy. Then we would go to the local chippy and clean the place out. Then it was one last go on all the rides and then back on the bus to go home.

6, Going on day trips with my family. Ah, the joys of childhood eh? One particular trip was up to London Zoo and my cousin got a bee sting in her hand! Well, it was funny at the time. Others included going up to all the museums in London and pressing all the buttoms in the Science Museum, and looking at the mummies in the British Museum. We went to so many places I couldn't keep count. Other times when it was just my immediate family we went to nearly every single railway every made in this country thanks to my dads fasination. Bluebell Railway, Colne Valley Railway.. you name it, we went there. My all time favourite was the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway. If you've near been there then you MUST go. It minuture steam engines that actually work and it takes you on about a five mile track. Its so cute and keeps the kids entertained for the whole day. I think they have a website somewhere... hummm... must check that out.

7, Holidays in Cornwall. These were the first holidays that me and my immediate family ever went on. We stayed in a not so mobile cara
van which was in the winding lanes of Looe. There was a beach near to there down a mile walk which lead to the most clearest water Ive ever see in my life. The beach was stones but it was wonderful. It was in an inclosed area so there wasn't any waves, just crystal clear water. And if you wanted to get the sea out of your hair, there was a 20 ft waterfall which run into the sea. It was a beautiful place that we went to nearly every day. Oh, cornish icecream is divine! Its so creamy. I remember buying the biggest one that I could and was nearly sick in the car on the way back to the caravan! We went on about three of these holidays and I'll never forget them.

8, Camber Sands. This is where me, my other nan (my dad's mum), my other aunt, with my mum, dad and brother and sister would go during some summers when we got too old to stay with my other nan. These were great time. My nan taught me and my sister how to play Rummy and Canasters and my little brother how to play Bingo!! We use to eat these really delicious chips, which were almost hollow, on the beach, and go to the local pub where us kids would be fasinated by the different drink stirrers and mini umbrellas. My mum also let me try her drink which I loved, well, I loved the cocktail cherries really. I still love them today (I can eat a whole jar in a matter of minutes). Then we would go to the nightly shows in the holiday camp. Routine only varied when my dad took us out to the local Railway station!

9, Girls' Brigade Camp. This is when most of the girls' of our company would spend a week together in a church somewhere down south. Depending on the year we would go to either Ramsgate, Lowestoff, Little Hampton etc... These were great times where you would have fancy dress competitions (I won two years in a row being a pixie and a shark). We would have team games, days out at the beach, spend hours up at night talking into the wee hours, getting team point deducted for not ma
king our beds properly, getting told off for not stting the dinner table properly..the list goes on. I remember one night when us Juniors were in bed talk when one of the Seniors came into our room and started to make funny noises and flicking the lights on and off. My word you should of hear us scream blue murder! LOL! Needless to say we given a right rollocking by the Company Captain and then made to spend the night standing in the corridoor! Harsh, but we got our own back on the Seniors by putting ice cubes in their beds and slightly dismantaling their camp beds. You should of hear the noise created by 10 beds Collapsing at once and the screams from the cold ice cubes!! Oh, what FUN!

10, This would have to be spending long lazy hours in the back of the car with my brother and sister while my dad droves and my mum puts a Enya tape on in our old Ford Escort. Just simply sitting listening to the claming music, watching the rolling country sides and the traffic move slow by. Putting a perfect end to a perfect day. Ah, bliss...

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