Do you remember?

Or

When it actually happened not the numerous times it's been repeated?

Okay I don't remember Andy Pandy from 1952 but I do remember it in the fairly early sixties. And the elephant video, yes I was part of the generation that was mentally scarred when a baby elephant thought the floor of Blue Peter's studio was the local lav.

Memories, memories, memories.

When we came home from school and went out to play or if it rained, we'd play Snakes and Ladders, Ludo or Tiddlywinks.

I went back there today just for a visit and one hell of a laugh. A neighbour and I went to the Museum of Lost Content in Craven Arms - what a wonderful place. Cries of 'look at that. Do you remember that? Oh my God!' Memories of when Michael Jackson was black and The Osmond Brothers were young (they're coming to Shrewsbury next year - don't think I'll bother going, their piccy in the paper the other week made we weep) and the word Golliwog was accepted.

If ever you get chance to go, do but be prepared to feel very old when you come out.

But you know childhood memories can be a very useful tool for writing. I remember my Dad telling me that when he was a child in the 40s that one night he sat on the church yard wall with his friend and the two of them were looking up at the moon. My Dad said 'one day I want to walk on that.' 

His friend replied 'don't be daft, no one will ever walk on the moon, least of all you.'

Man did walk on the moon, sadly though not my Dad. But using his childhood memory I wrote a story 'Footsteps on the Moon,' which came second in a Wrekin Writers' open competition. I rewrote it under a different title and changed it slightly and it was later published in a small press magazine.

So if you're ever sitting there staring at a blank screen trying revisiting your childhood and see where it leads, failing that think back to Blue Peter (which was broadcast yesterday for the last time from the studios at Shepherds Bush) and do something creative with a plastic bottle, some sticky back plastic and some macaroni - uncooked of course and show your kids or grand kids just how resourceful you can be.