Share Your Memories

Reconnecting with our shared local history.

For many years now, we've been inviting visitors to our web site to add their own memories to share their experiences of life as it was when the photographs in our archive were taken. From brief one-liners explaining a little bit more about the image depicted, to great, in-depth accounts of a childhood when things were rather different than today (and everything inbetween!). We've had many contributors recognising themselves or loved ones in our photographs.

Why not add your memory today and become part of our Memories Community to help others in the future delve back into their past.

A couple at a laptop

Add a Memory!

It's easy to add your own memories and reconnect with your shared local history. Search for your favourite places and look for the 'Add Your Memory' buttons to begin

Tips & Ideas

Not sure what to write? It's easy - just think of a place that brings back a memory for you and write about:

  • How the location features in your personal history?
  • The memories this place inspires for you?
  • Stories about the community, its history and people?
  • People who were particularly kind or influenced your time in the community.
  • Has it changed over the years?
  • How does it feel, seeing these places again, as they used to look?

This week's Places

Here are some of the places people are talking about in our Share Your Memories community this week:

...and hundreds more!

Enjoy browsing more recent contributions now.

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Visitors to this website have so far contributed 65,947 memories inspired by the Frith photographs. Join in, and take a moment to remember the places that have been important in your life. Where your family comes from, where you were born, went to school and got married; the towns and villages where you've lived and worked since. Recapture and rekindle those precious memories with this special part of our website.

Displaying all 8 Memories

The Fish Meadow is just North and East of the river bridge, and in my youth, (as now) was prone to flooding. I remember a year when the still water, stretching across the meadow (as opposed to the main river flow) froze over. Then, while the temperature remained below freezing, the water subsided, allowing the ice sheet to settle back on to the surface of the meadow and actually bend to the shape of the field ...see more
We moved in to our new house in Rosemary Avenue in 1938. We had a Triumph car and my father built a garage of timber and asbestos sheets and laid concrete runways for it (they're still there). I started school in 1939 at the infant school in Down Street. One of our neighbours had a daughter Shirley, the same age as me and we went to school together. When the Blitz first started in 1940 we couldn't get ...see more
This once sleepy hamlet was first home to me, a better place for childhood there could not be. Little Drayton church and it`s `olde` Sunday school. fishing excursions with Uncle to Buntingsdale pool, Dalelands West; lucky dipbags, Reardon`s supplies, Monday morning washdays, roller skates, blue skies. With my `Dan Dare interplanetary telecommunications set, boyhood dreams of space missions were ...see more
First stayed there in 1951. My dad rented the chalet opposite the green corrugated Chapel aside of the sandy path which lead to the beach. Apart from the shop and chippy there was a Welcoast ice cream kiosk on the corner that closed a couple of years later.'(Often licked never beaten' was the slogan) The shop was run as I recall by two elderly ladies; it was then taken over by Mr. Bill and Mrs Mavis Jones. I ...see more
The St. John Ambulance Brigade of Grays Thurrock had three wooden first aid posts that they manned over bank holidays and summer weekends which were along what was the main road from East End of London running through to Southend-on-Sea. They were painted white and when manned and flew the brigade flag on a small mast attached to the huts. The windows were protected by wooden shutters which ...see more
My earliest memories are of Aldringham. I was born in the Police Station on Mill Hill in 1937, the youngest of three children. My father was the local policeman, P.C. James McGuire. I often wonder now how my mother managed, with three children under five. There was no water electricity, gas or sewage. Water had to be carried from a well 100 yards down the road. When my father had the audacity to request that water ...see more
Southend-on-Sea in the 50’s At the housing estate in Mitcham where we lived they had a tenants association. Every Friday night, two of the committee would go round to the Elm Court flats in Mitcham, where we lived, to collect one or two shillings. This money was for an outing that the committee organized, mainly in winter, so that people could have an evening out at least once a year. There were ...see more
I went to Gatley Primary these years. Happy memories, completely changed now. I am an aviation buff and saw the first BOAC b747 land at Manchester Airport from my classroom window. My teacher was a Mr Elliott, not sure of his whereabouts now but I shouted "IT'S A JUMBO" out loud - he replied "quiet, I dont care if its a pink elephant."!!!!!!!!