Smells and memories

I have a sister in The Dales, and on a winter visit last year the smell of coal fire smoke in the street took me right back to a very long ago childhood.
Goodness knows how long it was since I'd smelt that.

When i was young, my father used to take me on the Woolwich ferry. I used to spend the whole time down in the engine room. As I remember there was a viewing area with a brass and polished wooden rail overlooking the engines. The smell of oil, steam and coal brings back those memories. Hence my vof anything powered by steam and probably my interest in engineering.

Just reading these has brought back so many memories, a life story in smells, thank you.

The smell of a coke fire and Mansion House Polish. Mum was the main breadwinner, unusual in the 50s, and dad did a lot of housework including keeping the fire going and polishing the table.

Old Spice aftershave.....my father

Saddle soap/ hoof oil.. my working life
Sudocrem... my babies
Golden Virginia...my dad
Nail varnish remover...my mum

Just one sniff of Kamillosan ointment (used for treating cracked nipples!) and I'm holding one of my newborn DCs. Bliss!

Mum used to take me past the gasworks in my pushchair after I had whooping cough.
I had forgotten that, but your post reminded me Auntieflo.
I don't know if it made any difference.

The smell of Brentford gas works as we went by on the bus.
Dad boiling up his glue on the stove, for when he was mending something.
The white glue we used at school that smelled like marzipan.

The aroma of a box hedge takes me right back to my granny's garden. My dad smoked St Bruno in his pipe and when I was in a train through the Corsican mountains, the scent of the maquis drifting through the window made it feel as if he was right beside me.

The smell of a hot water bottle reminds me of being tucked up in bed as a child.
The smell of bleach reminds me of my nans house - she always seemed to have something in soak in the sink.

My granddads pipe tobacco, I loved it. My mum wearing Blue Grass. My MIL when she came home from working in the critical baby ward, bathed but could still smell the disinfectant. My DH who was a technician on helicopters, always smelt of eau de engine oil. Many smells bring back memories for me. My DS loved monster munch pickled onion crisps, absolutely revolting.

Yes remember swarfega and also turps.
Paint brushes in the shed soaking in turps
That also has reminded me of the lovely smell of creosote.
Oh dear just realised what my smell memory consists of.

My MiL has no sense of smell left
She says its due to working a paint factory years ago.
She can get a faint whiff of lavender from aromatherapy lavender oil but that's all

I remember all those smells but unfortunately I lost my sense of smell (Anosmia) 6 years ago and therefore no longer experience that instant transportation back to past memories. I did an interview a couple of years ago with someone who was writing a thesis about anosmics and that was one of the things she was most interested in. It's actually a recognised part of the depression which results from loss of smell and therefore taste. I always feel sad at Christmas that I can't smell the pine needles on trees or the wonderful spices and in the summer the smell of fresh mown grass or a lovely rose. Aside from the everyday problems it causes (rotten food, leaking gas etc) it's the memories I miss most!

TCP reminds me of my first holiday in Switzerland, in the days when 'Brits' took first aid with them!
The bottle top was loose and spilt in my case. Eau de TCP!

Flowering current smell also reminds me of Tom cat pee. They grew at the bus stop where I caught the bus to school.

The smell of TCP takes me back to my granddad's bedroom when he was very ill. I've hated it ever since.

Oh yes, blackcurrants, always smell a bit tomcat don't they?

It was effective though ( swarfega)
The smell of chalk and poster paints reminds me of junior school.
Haven't had a sniff of pipe smoke for a while, but if I had it would remind me of my Grandfather, who always had a pipe, lit or unlit in his mouth.When my eldest DD was at junior school, her teacher ( a lovely man) always had his pipe going ( in the classroom!) hard to believe nowadays isn't it?

The smell of blackcurrants. We had a large fruit garden and I used to go into the currant patch- they were all taller than me - with an empty matchbox collecting ladybirds. I can remember them crawling out as I opened the box and me trying to put them all back in.

If you remember Isopon, what about Swarfega??

Memories of Sunday lunchtimes. Me trying to get the roast finished and all those lovely smells being swamped by the all pervading stench of Swarfega as DH, fresh (if you can call it that) from his weekend MG Club engine tuning clinic, up to his elbows in the ghastly stuff at the kitchen sink.

There was always a tub under the kitchen sink....Bleugh!!

The smell of breakfast bacon and toast reminds me of childhood holidays.
We never had bacon or toast at breakfast time, at home, and I have never liked bacon anyway, just the smell.

Farola pudding in gran's kitchen then again when I made it for DD1 aged about 3!

One for the grandads.
Isopon (sp?)
I can still remember the aroma even though I haven't smelled it for a very long time
On a Sunday my dad and every other bloke in the street would have their heads stuck in car engines or flat on their back with feet sticking out from under their cars.
My DF would spread the Isopon over a mesh and cover one of the many holes that seemed to appear weekly on our family car usually covered by a rust patch.
This thread has just reminded me of my dear old Dad when he was in his prime.

The smell of Sunlight soap takes me straight back to my Grandma's kitchen.

So true how smells ( and non-visual senses in general) bring back long-forgotten memories. The smell of basil reminds me of my paternal grandmother and her beautiful hilltop house in Italy, coffee of my father, lily of the valley of my mother, and yes, whitewave, camomile fields of my birth village where I spent the first five years of my life.

Marcel Proust based his whole literary output on this involuntary memory resuscitated by our non-visual senses: taste, smell, sound. The most often quoted episode from his 'Remembrance of Things Past' is when he dipped a ^ madeleine^ into his tea and the taste brought back his early childhood, long forgotten.