Your earliest memories of childhood?

I know a lot of people have clear memories of their childhood. I don't. Instead they are flashes of events over a period of time. Some of the events were major and some were minor. For some reason they are all sun-drenched - I don't have a great deal of memories of winter in the 1970's, and I'm not sure why that is.

My childhood was spent in country New South Wales in Australia. In the town I lived in the main industry was coal mining. Later on, just before I moved further up the minefields with my family, wine production was gaining momentum, but my childhood memories of the vineyards of Pokolbin bear little resemblance to what they are today.

I'm going to give you some of my memories as I see them, Most of these I don't have dates for, they are just little events in the larger scheme of life.

The first big memory I have does have a date attached: Christmas Day, 1974. We weren't able to make our annual trip to the coast that year because of financial restraints, so we actually had the news on the TV. What I saw, to a child of six, was horrible. A child standing by a destroyed house, clutching a doll, with tangled tinsel all around her. The night before Cyclone Tracy had hit Darwin, destroying 70% of the town. A big wind came and blew the town away, as the song spawned from the event said.

I also remember the red cross vans going up our street several weeks after it happened getting donations, and the town hall where the donations were being collected. It seemed like the goods were piled to the roof, to a child of six.

There are other more scattered memories, though:

I can remember walking to pre-school with my mother and dropping my lunch along the way. We stopped at a friend's place so she could replace it. It was too far to walk home without a car.

My Great-Grandfather, who died when I was around seven, lying on the couch at my Granparent's place. He had a nickname for each of his great-grandchildren, and it escapes me at the moment what it was. Great-grandad had a property in Pokolbin when the area was mainly dairy farming rather than wine production.

The Dismissal of the Whitlam Government. I remember it because it was such a big thing in an area where the Unions had such sway. It wasn't until years later I understood the significance of the event.

Christmas at the beach, which we did almost every year...and waiting for all my friends to turn up on Boxing Day.

Riding around on a bike in the paddock a few streets down from my house, and having to be reminded that there were red-bellied black snakes there so that I didn't ride across them.

In a lot of ways I wish that I had complete memories of the events of my childhood like I see in a lot of autobiographies. I could add a lot more flashes to what I've written above, but I don't want to bore you.

I think the overall nostaliga comes from a time of innocence rather than things being easier back then. They were simple for me, but not for my parents who were trying to make ends meet. There are a lot of people who've led a more interesting life than I have, but each memory has value because it is unique.