I Remember

I remember climbing into the attic and finding nothing there except four champagne corks on a rafter. They still had their crowns on: a king, a queen, a prince and a princess.

I remember we threw slates at each other for two hours before we realised that most of them had gone through a small gap and landed on the neighbour's greenhouse.

I remember my friends told me they had thrown hawthorn hips at my dad's car and he had chased them further than any other dad.

I remember my friend told me he would clap the bee and let me catch it.

I remember the bee stung me and my friend laughed.

I remember I winked at my neighbours one day as I passed them on my bicycle since I couldn't take my hands off the handlebars and they saw and laughed about it later with my parents.

I remember the wall behind my neighbour's armchair was yellow with cigar smoke.

I remember I stole my grandfather's Swan Vestas matches and was caught sneaking them into the glove compartment just as we were leaving.

I remember I took a pound note from my mother's purse and put it in my sock and a boy at school told the teacher and she said that he shouldn't be so stupid.

I remember I was the only boy with a camera and I took a picture of my class standing on the steps outside.

I remember my friend and I made a maze by falling over backwards into tall reeds but when we got our fathers to look they were too big to appreciate how great it was.

I remember a boy said I was too scared to jump off the green swings and I did and I couldn't stop running and I cut my chin open on the railing that stopped me falling in the River Wansbeck.

I remember I asked the boy who they said was going to die to buy some condoms for me, and he did.

I remember swapping all my vintage Indian stamps for some nice new Spanish ones.

I remember thinking Olivia Newton-John looked better before she had her hair permed at the end of Grease.

I remember when I discovered how to make an aborigine arrow weighted with a large nail.

I remember when my friend had a pencil case thrown at him and the compass inside stuck in his head so that the pencil case kept going round and round like a radar until the nurse pulled it out.

I remember when Mr Poulter threw Fruitoff at the easel blackboard and it collapsed on him.

I remember the day when my kite flew so well I played football with the string tied to my belt.

I remember when Mars Bars went up from 3p to 4p.

I remember trying to buy matches in the VJ shop.

I remember falling off the long rope and not hurting myself.

I remember throwing a stone at some girls and hitting my friend instead and never being able to eat the sweets in his toy shop again.

I remember we sang 'All Things Bright and Beautiful' and 'The Lord of the Dance'.

I remember I tried to do a backflip in the swimming pool and bloodied my nose on the bottom.

I remember my father persuaded me to do a dive off the highest diving board and it was a bellyflop.

I remember my mother standing on the back doorstep and shouting Cooee! at the window cleaner who was still several houses away.

I remember I kept dreaming that abominable snowmen shot my friends with arrows made from milkbottle tops.

I remember believing that there really was magic dream dust inside my Sooty and Sweep annual.

I remember it started raining and I walked home with a bucket on my head.

I remember getting to school early one morning and there was a starling on a branch outside the window that could talk.

I remember I never ever needed a hanky.

I remember sometimes I had nosebleeds that lasted for hours.

I remember clackers.

I remember not noticing I had walked on my aunt's record collection.

I remember my aunt had to give me her hat with fifty embroidered signatures after I had counted a hundred Beetle cars driving past outside.

I remember that one Sunday that was like waking up inside a vacuum.

I remember being given smelling salts after fainting in the choir stalls.

I remember singing 'O for the Wings of a Dove'.

I remember my newborn brother lying in the luggage space in the back of the Beetle.

I remember playing bingo with my Pops and Nana while drinking pineapple juice and eating mixed fruit and nuts.

I remember counting all the Embassy coupons in Pops' clay pigeon shooting cup.

I remember learning how to light my grandparent's stove with rolled up newspapers.

I remember when Bulgarian fighters buzzed our passenger jet.

I remember when my plastic bag loaded with conkers burst open on the central concourse of the airport in Sofia.

I remember the mobile above my bed never lined up exactly right like the picture it was cut from.


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I think this might make a good meme, so I tag Ivy, Ludi, Andrea, Lisa and Amardeep in the hope they'll feel inspired.