A few weeks back I read this post written by Anna at The Wandering Introvert and it got me thinking; this would not only be a good writing exercise but also an excellent prompt for a Throwback Thursday post.

Anna’s method goes like this:

“Set a timer for some amount of time, and, without stopping, compose a series of sentences that begin with the phrase “I remember.” If you get stuck, just write the prompt over and over again until something else comes out.”

I set my clock for 10 minutes, then added a few more for touching up and uploading pictures.

I remember one time when I burned my hand on hot coals while playing outside by the wood boiler – I tried to hide the blister from Mum because she’d told me not to go there, but somehow she found out. I remember being relieved (and surprised) because she didn’t get cross and instead gave me a hug and placed a soft kiss on my hand.

I also remember Mum being very cross with me for cutting my doll’s hair.

Sophie the doll, after her hair cut

I remember going with Dad to look for tadpoles in the stream at the end of our garden. Dad kept a thermometer there in the water, I can’t remember why he wanted to record the temperature but I do remember the water was always very cold! I remember that he had to make a cage for the thermometer out of bamboo sticks to keep the otters from destroying it. I remember that we often saw otters there. I remember years later watching a film called Ring of Bright Water, which was about an otter.  Thinking about that story still brings tears to my eyes.

I remember my first day at school. I wasn’t really afraid until I saw that Mum was crying and trying not to let me see and then I became scared. I remember one day doing something really bad in class – I think I deliberately coloured outside the lines and made a mess of my drawing – and had to sit in the corner with my back to the other children. I remember the shame I felt and I remember worrying that the teacher would tell my parents. She didn’t tell them, but I did. I think they pretended to be cross.

I remember watching films every Friday night at the open-air cinema (we called it the bi-scope). There were short breaks each time the reel had to be changed and a longer one at half-time, when we would buy a coke and a packet of crisps for 10 cents. Before they paved the area, us kids used to sit on the sand at the front while our parents sat in plastic ribbed seats behind us.  I remember some nights, if it was an age-restricted film, I would sleep in that little hole at the very back of my parents’ VW Beetle with Owen, our Welsh Border Collie, to keep me company. I remember one night he stole a cheese and onion crisp out of my hand – it was the biggest crisp I had ever seen.

I remember the first dog I ever owned. Sometimes, after bathing her, I would dye her white coat with food dye. Her name was Fifi. I remember the sound of screeching tyres on the road in front of our house and how devastated I was when I learned that she had been knocked down by a passing car and that I would never see her again.

Fifi in pink