Early "vivid" childhod memories. What are yours?

I clicked on one of Reyn's threads this morning, and as soon as I saw the two words "body parts" I immediately thought of something I remembered seeing when I was about 4 years old, or even younger. I would say that this is about the earliest "vivid" memory of mine, although there are many other vague memories from an even younger age.
This one, however, is the first memory that I can still clearly visualise today, as if running a video tape in my brain.
It's nearly always triggered by a news article concerning dismembered bodies, but the memory isn't scary at all.


Up until the age of 5, my family home was a three bedroomed attached Victorian house, which was adjoined to an old Fire Station in North London.
My Dad was a fireman who had served during the blitz in central London, and had been offered the house as part of a deal to encourage experienced firemen to transfer out to "the sticks" when the Government of the day were setting up the National Fire Service.

The house fronted directly onto the busy Watling Street, a main road that goes southwards, straight down to Marble Arch.
At the back of the house, there was a small garden with a sturdy metal fence at the end. Beyond that was a very ornate Victorian "signal box" on high stilts, with an almost resident signalman (Alf Whitehead) who used to spend all day making large mugs of tea, and occasionally pulling long lever switches which changed the settings of the rails and signals for the main railway line which ran from St Pancras in London, up to Bedford in the north. This route was affectionately called the "bedpan line", and still is, I believe.

Now, during the Victorian era, numerous lunatic asylums (as they were called then) were built on the very outskirts of London, to accomodate London's "loonies".
Within three miles of our little Fire Station, there were several of these dark, forboding places, whose names struck terror into the hearts of the locals. Harperbury, Napsbury, Shenley, Leavesden and worst of all, Cell Barnes, where the violent ones were locked up.
Each asylum had its own solid brick, almost gothic watertower, which dominated the horizon for miles around. Whichever way one looked, a watertower was visible, off in the distance.
Cell Barnes had many an escapee, and a long wailing siren would drone into the night, at least once a week, signalling that someone had got out.

The reason I'm mentioning these "nuthouses" (another quaint term of the time) is that the patients who either escaped, or indeed were let out on a day release basis, were prone to finding their way to a railway road bridge which spannned the bedpan line. Once they were there, they would wait for an express steam train to pass underneath, and jump.

My Dad and his crew had the unenviable task of having to pick up the remains of a "jumper" from the track, and pass them onto the hospital authorities. He would have to take part in this activity at least once a week, but it was usually more frequent than that.
I remember seeing him and his mates on several occasions, as they walked past the end of our garden, heads down, each holding a small sack into which the limbs would be placed. My brothers and I used to wave, but didn't usually get much in the way of a response.

The memory.
I remember EXACTLY what I was doing at the time, as my Dad had set us (my older brother and I) off on one of his famous treasure hunts in the back garden. He'd told us over breakfast, that the area where we lived was a prime landing site for German spy parachutists who were dropped during the war, so that they could infiltrate London and kill the King.
The story and treasure varied from time to time, but usually involved Germans (jerry's) and the war, and some form of treasure.
Apparently, little tin capsules were dropped all around the area, filled with money, so that the spies would be able to buy food and train tickets.
He said he was pretty sure he'd seen a couple of these capsules in the garden, but was too busy to go and get them. He asked if we could have a look, as he had to go to work, and we could keep anything we found.
In record time, the cornflakes were bunged down our throats, and we started our hunt.

After about ten minutes of turning over rocks and digging various clumps of earth, we found a long narrow tin which looked very much like one of those bicycle puncture repair kits. It was coverd in mud.....and rattled.
Upon opening the tin, we found that there was a scrap of paper with what looked like German writing on it, and four large old Pennies.

As we stood there in wonder, a very large stem train approached at slow speed, brakes on full and sounding its whistle.

I stood and watched, as this giant of a train came hissing to a stop, with a man attached to the front.
He was facing forwards in a standing position, both arms fully outstretched and head looking up to the sky, eyes wide open.

The train driver was shouting to Alf Whitehead as the train stopped, and Alf was shouting "Elsie" (my Mum's name) , obviously wanting Mum to go and use the Fire Station phone to call the necessary authorities.

For what seemed like an eternity, my brother and I just stood there, mouths open, looking at this man who couldn't have been any more than twenty feet away.

All of a sudden, Mum came out of nowhere and bodily lifted me into the air and whisked both of us indoors. She was angry at us, for some strange reason. Maybe it was adrenaline.

The theory was that this "loony" had jumped from a nearby bridge, but instead of going under the train, the large coupling bolt at the front of the engine had got him underneath the rib cage, and pinned him in place, a bit like a figurehead on a ship.

We weren't allowed out for the rest of the day, so had to wait until the following day to find the rest of the treasure (which had more pennies, and some boiled sweets).


Well, that's a gruesome one to start the ball rolling.

What can YOU vividly remember?