June 2008

This month's 'A Trip Down Memory Lane' has taken a different turn. The memories selected below are directed towards our much loved parents! Parents, you can't live with them, you can't live without them. We have some fantastic memories from our readers outlining some of the brilliant, yet slightly embarrassing situations their parents have got themselves into. In-fact the memories this month not only concentrate on our parents, we have some fantastic memories about our beloved grandparents and tales of what our readers got up to as kids; it really is an assortment of entertaining stories. Enjoy!

Now you see it, now you don't.
For many years my family and I used to go to the Costa del Sol for our family vacation. There was mum, dad, my elder brother Martin, sister Rachel, the youngest Andrew and myself. Each day we would take a trip down to the beach. On the particular day in question, dad took all us kids for a swim in the sea and mum stayed on the beach, like most mums do, topping her tan up and waving to us all. Because Andrew was really young he had an inflatable rubber duck around him. Dad swam at the front for some reason and we all followed behind with Andrew at the back. Next minute we hear shouting from the beach, "Bambino, bambino" Which is the baby, in Spanish. Everyone on the beach was standing up and it was mum shouting. Martin, Gemma and I are waving back to her, thinking "What are you doing!" What we didn't realize was that all mum could see of Andrew, was this big rubber duck and kicking behind it. So like most people I'm sure, or maybe not, she thought the worst. Again, she starts shouting, but this time to the life guards, "Bambino, bambino" not knowing anything else to say in Spanish. Just as the life guards are about to run into the sea, Andrew pops his head over the ducks wings and starts waving to mum. She was so embarrassed by causing such a commotion and then had to sit back down on the beach with every-one looking at her, thinking, who is this crazy woman! Dad suggested that we all swam along the beach and got out of the sea further down, so no-one would know it was us she was shouting about. Poor mum, still to this day, 13 years later she has still not lived this story down!
Gemma Louise

Bring back the cane!
My dad is a teacher and he used to embarrass us all the time, especially when we were supposed to be doing revision. My friends would come round to see if I wanted to play out and he would put his very stern teacher voice on and say, "This is a house of revision! The boys are not coming to play tonight, and you should be at home revising as-well." We used to be extremely embarrassed and my friends used to get scared on knocking round. To make matters worse, as a teenager growing up my dad's pride and joy was his car, a camper van, pretty cool you'd think, oh no it was what can only be described as 'poo' brown colour. You just couldn't get a worse coloured car if you tried. Luckily my mum took the sunroof off it by accident, trying to go under a barrier in a car park. It was brilliant!
Toby Patton

Find me the Fixodent!
My mum's new boyfriend was having a family party and they invited all our family to go. Grandad had never met any of them before and it was extremely important for mum, that we made a good impression. Well we did that alright. We were all having a great time and as you do, the adults were having a few drinks. Grandad had more than a few though. He got so drunk, that my mum's boyfriend had to get him a bucket to be sick in. To make matters worse poor nanna had to find his false teeth in the bucket after! Oops. It's always the old ones!
Tom Lancaster

Kids say the funniest things!
My grandad was a Japanese prisoner of war and when we were little my youngest brother Drew did not fully understand what grandad meant when he told his war stories about the prison camps in Burma and his fellow soldiers. Just a few years ago grandad was awarded an MBE for all his work as a welfare officer for the Far Eastern Prisoners of War (FEPOWS). One day at school Drew's teacher asked him, why grandad had been awarded the MBE. As you can imagine children say the funniest things, that funny that grandad thought it would be a great idea to tell the Queen as he received the award. He said, "Your majesty, my grandson believes I am receiving this award for spending four years in jail". The Queen started laughing and my mum sat watching, thinking to herself, "Oh dear, I hope he is not telling the Queen a rude joke!"

Each weekend mum used to take us all to visit grandad for the weekend, we would take huge amounts of toys and cause havoc in the lovely town where he lived. He had a beautiful garden that grandma took great pride in. She had some weird and wonderful flowers. One day we all asked if we could help and like grandmas do she found an easy but enjoyable job for us. That job was weeding. Fantastic, we all thought it was great fun, getting our hands dirty and digging up what we believed to be weeds. But that's not what grandma thought when all her beautiful flowers where in a heap on the path. Oops! Weeds or beautiful flowers, how were we meant to know? When we would leave on the Sunday, grandad would put the flags out, almost in celebration, he thought it was ever so funny, I think the neighbours thought we were all mad!
Barbara Martin

The Adventures of the Pigeon House
Driving up towards what looks like a Lord's house on the top of a hill, snow falling all around and a clapped out Land Rover just parked right at the top, the Pigeon House as we called it, not sure why, was one of my favourite places to visit. My godmother Flo, a rather eccentric but amazing lady, used to organise fantastic adventures for us all in the holidays. The house was extremely hectic when we were all there but Flo wouldn't have had it any other way. On Halloween Flo invited all the children from the neighborhood round to the Pigeon House and we all made lanterns in the barn, we then marched around the fishing lake at the bottom of the house with our lanterns, Flo and about twenty kids in toe.
They had a donkey called Bridget, two Poodles called Polly and Floss, and when Theo the youngest was really little he used to ride around the house on Floss's back. Flo really loved animals and always wanted a llama, she said she would have called it Fira or Burglar. Can you imagine, Fira Llama or Burglar Llama? This gives you some kind of idea as to what the pigeon house was like. It was great! One year we went sledging on a large hill with what can only be described as some sort of muddy river running at the bottom. My poor sister couldn't stop and she went straight in and got completely covered in mud. But kids love that kind of thing and so did Flo. We would play for hours, climbing trees, making cakes and every Christmas Flo had all of us make a Christmas Collage that used to go all the way across the wall in the lounge. We could add anything we liked to the collage. Glue and glitter everywhere. When my brother was at school he got asked to write about all the things he had got up to and of course he wrote about The Pigeon House. On parents evening his teacher said to my mum, "Your son has a very vivid imagination" and mum had to tell her, "Actually, it's all true".
Lydia Barnes

Thank you to everyone who wrote in this month with yet again some fantastic memories. But don't forget, we still need more! 'A Trip Down Memory Lane' is your page, so why not take a few minutes, jot down a memory you would like to share with us all and send it in to, 'The Knowledge' Magazine, City Mills, Peel Street, Morley, LS27 8QL.