Childhood Memories Week 08 - Vivid Memories
This week is our final look at primary/grade school and I am setting you an easy task (well I hope you will think it easy!).
I want you to cast your mind back to those days at school and record a memory of something or someone or even a specific moment that really stands out for you from this period in your life.
Perhaps it was a special teacher who made a lasting impression or an award you received at speech night. Maybe you can still remember how proud you felt swimming at the school carnival or being made school captain. Perhaps the vivid memory is something more painful - breaking a bone falling off the play equipment or falling down the front steps. Maybe you had your first brush with childhood love at primary school and can still remember holding hands with that special boy.
If I were to ask you what it is you remember most from primary school what would it be?
Childhood Memories Week 07 - The great beyond
One of the best parts about school for me were the excursions/field trips, camps or just days away from the actual classroom. We certainly did not get as many days off as children of today but when they rolled around for me, they were extra, extra special.
Some may have been as lowly as walking a few blocks to visit the local supermarket to compare prices of produce, others might have involved getting on an actual bus and being driven away from school to attend a concert or play in another town or suburb. Perhaps you were lucky enough to get out into the countryside to experience nature firsthand. I vividly remember going to a dairy farm some miles out of my country town to see how milk was produced. Having been brought up on a farm it certainly was no real lesson for me but I can remember how some of my town classmates were both amazed and appalled (at the same time) by the experience!
Did you get to have school field trips at your school? What can you remember about them?
Camps and longer trips were greeted by mixed reactions. Some kids just loved them and couldn’t wait to pack their bags and head off into the unknown. Many others were left sobbing at the departure point and literally had to be hauled away from their parents and led wailing onto buses. Were you willing or wailing when you headed off to camp?
I’m not sure how long the tradition has been going here in Australian but even back in my day, our school Year 6 went to Canberra to see how our federal parliament worked. It was a three-day excursion, yes two whole nights away from home, sleeping in bunk beds and staying up late!! An amazing experience for kids from a small country town. I can still recall the feeling of elation I had as I hopped onto the bus clutching the woollen blanket my Grandma bought me for the long winter trip and the wonder in which I greeted each new and exciting experience in our nations capital.
Is there a special excursion or field trip you vividly recall from your primary/grade school days? Please share it with us.
Let’s get physical
This week we are still roving around the junior schools of our childhood, in fact a grand tour might be in order.
How many schools did you attend over your junior years? Did you start and end your primary/grade school days at the same educational facility or did your family move around a lot when you were a child and you had the pleasure (or misfortune) of attending several? Perhaps generations of your family all attended the same school – how cool is that! Do you have photographs of your parents or grandparents at this school in a recognizable location? Perhaps your own children and grandchildren attend the very same school you did. Perhaps you might like to tell us about this wonderful family connection.
Can you remember much about the physical aspects of the school you attended? Was it a large sprawling series of buildings with many pupils? Was it a smaller school with limited classrooms and a small number of students? Was it made from brick or timber, on one level or several? Was it bright and cheerful or dark and imposing? Did you have large playing fields and playground facilities or did you need to go to other locations for sport and physical education classes? Let us know what it was like.
Was your school named for something significant? Many schools are named for local celebrities or notable citizens, others for significant events or landmarks – was yours one of these? Do you know the meaning of this name?
Do you now live close to where you went to school? Have you considered going back and taking some photographs of how it is today and comparing it to when you were there? You can do something similar on Google Maps or you might discover your old school has a website and an archive of current and historic photographs.
Above is a satellite picture of my old school site and I have to say the overall layout has not changed much at all in the intervening years. I can still pinpoint the buildings I was in for each year I attended here and locate the library block, canteen and various other landmarks. I can remember going around and around the rectangular playing field doing marching drills for the annual Anzac parade.
My husband spent his early childhood in the UK and on a return visit in 2009 he actually visited his old school and received a grand tour by the principal who showed him the changes that had taken places over the years and presented him with a copy of his initial school registration. Have you ever revisited your old school – physically or online?
Can you recall what your uniform looked like (if you wore one) and what it consisted of? Do you remember what the school colours were or the school emblem/flag/motto? Perhaps that is testing your brain a little too much!
Memories in this age bracket will tend to be remembered in snippets - specific days and events, particular teachers and the things they did (good or bad), daily occurrences that have stuck in your mind (assemble, school prayer or song, the home bell, recess and lunch), major events you were a part of (school plays, recitals, sports carnivals), particular friendships and the goings-on that circled around them.
Tell us more about your early school days and the school(s) you attended.
School Daze
This week we are concentrating on the things we remember about primary/grade school. To some of us school might have been a wonderful experience, a place of refuge and learning. We might have embraced all there was on offer - played with friends, enjoyed the sporting activities, joined in with choir or music and in general, can look back fondly at these years. Others might not have such warm thoughts of the years spent learning. How did you feel about school? Was it a positive or negative experience for you?
Do you recall a special teacher who made the learning experience all that much better. Tell us about them. Perhaps you recall the teacher for more ominous reasons – I will ever forget a teacher I had in Year 5 who absolutely terrorised the boys in my class, not a day went by when one of their unfortunate number wasn’t dragged from class to be sent to the headmaster or to be given “6 of the best”.
Maybe you remember specific events like a particular school excursion or representing your school in a community celebration or at a sporting carnival. You may vividly recall a particular speech night or open day when parents and /or grandparents visited the school. What was that like? How did it make you feel?
You possibly remember assembles, like I do - standing in the open school playground in the heat of summer listening to our school principal go on and on and on about nothing whatsoever when all you wanted to do was get inside out of the sun.
Memories of school to you might be less about the activities and more about the friendships you made. We all had “best” best friends at school – girls stuck with girls in groups of three or four. We played games at lunchtime – can you remember what they were? Elastics, hopscotch, skipping rope, jacks, marbles? Tell us about these wonderful inexpensive games we all loved so much.
Do you recall how you got to school each day? Did you walk or ride a bike or on a bus or did someone drop you off at school? Think back to the details of this. If you walked, write about what you did along the way and what you saw. Did you walk with friends or with siblings? Can you recall how you felt on cold winter or rainy days? I remember how tired my ams became carrying my school case. I would switch from one hand to the next trying to even out the weight (this was in the years long before backpacks became the norm).
What do you remember about these early years of education?
Stories and words
It’s the last day of the month and it’s time to focus on something perhaps a little more light-hearted about our early childhood days.
I think all of us would have a favourite anecdote or story about ourselves, one which has been handed down by our parents or grandparents. Nine times out of ten these amusing tales would be an awkward or embarrassing moment and parents, both young and old, seem to delight in telling these wonderful little titbits in the most humiliating manner possible. Perhaps you might even recall when you said or did something inappropriate at the time but is now amusing when looking back at it. Kids after all say and do the darnedest things.
Children!! W C Fields wisely advised against working with them and good old Bill Cosby had a very successful and extremely funny television show based on the things they say. Out of the mouths of babes comes.... well just about anything, at any time, really.
It doesn’t seem to matter what age bracket you belong to, kids have been saying the funniest things for generations. They say them when you least expect it and when the mood takes them. They will say them loudly and quickly and there are many, many times when those around them have wished they hadn't said anything at all.
Take the time when my mother and I were shopping in the crowded local department store in my hometown. I was about 4 and was a real chatterbox back then. I talked incessantly, asking questions and making comments all the time – my poor mother didn’t get a minutes peace. We were in the haberdashery department and my mother was preoccupied rummaging through a bargain bin of fabric off cuts when I spot something. I desperately want to tell my mother about it but she’s not looking at me. She has her back turned and is bent over the material. So I start tugging on the back of her dress and silly Mum ignores me saying “just a minute dear” but I need to tell her now so I tug harder and faster until I can contain myself no longer and at the top of my voice I say "Mummy!! That man has NO HAIR." Pause for effect. "SEE ... (pointing) … he has NO HAIR on his HEAD".
So do you have an amusing anecdote or story you might like to share about something you said or did as a child.
