Smells that take you back to your childhood.

[Newey]

Following on from the sounds thread.
The smell on cold mornings of 4* leaded petrol burning through the car engine with the choke on.

[Mr. Dazzle]

TCP.

It's not even really TCP these days! It's a fake smell.

[Buckaroo]

Coal fire smoke lingering in the air on cold frosty mornings.

As an aside, I have clear memories of walking to infants school in a proper smog. Pea souper, as in green tinged. We had handkerchief masks so we were safe

P.S. I have relived this on numerous skiing holidays. It evokes good memories of times past.

[Count Steer]

I was going to say coal fires starting up, like when I was on my paper round in an area where everyone seemed to be getting 'miner's concessionary coal' but you don't get the smell any more...well, maybe in Poland.

Ditto, twice a week iirc the local brewery made the town smell like a, err, brewery.

[Felix]

Dettol.

[Count Steer]

Took me a while to remember what it was called. Mum aged women all ponked of 'Lily of the Valley'...and it's still available from just about every smelly water manufacturer but it's only once in a blue moon I get a whiff - and I'm 6 again!

Late teenage+ years? They ought to do scratch and sniff 'memory lane' cards. If they did a Mary Quant 'PM' one I'd be in rut. If they did an Aramis one I'd wonder 'What on earth possessed me to want to smell like that?'

[Noggin]

Weirdly, as a non smoker, the smell of a single cigarette!! When my mum came home from the rare nights out, she’d sometimes come and check on us. She’d be smoking. And very occasionally she’d sit on the edge of the bed if I was awake, and I could smell just that single bit of smoke.

I guess cos there aren’t many ‘cosy’ memories from childhood, that smell or one single cigarette really takes me back

[mangocrazy]

Napalm in the morning...

[Ian]

Ice cream vans and generators at Goose Fair used to smell lovely I assume diesel was different in the 60s

Coal tar soap

Coal generally

Raspberries nicked from the local allotments

2 strokes

[Buckaroo]

Took me a while to remember what it was called. Mum aged women all ponked of 'Lily of the Valley'...and it's still available from just about every smelly water manufacturer but it's only once in a blue moon I get a whiff - and I'm 6 again!

Late teenage+ years? They ought to do scratch and sniff 'memory lane' cards. If they did a Mary Quant 'PM' one I'd be in rut. If they did an Aramis one I'd wonder 'What on earth possessed me to want to smell like that?'

Brut...splash it all over. The true smell of an original skinhead. Tottenham Royal here I come

[Supermofo]

Granddad died when I was 3.5 years old but occasionally can still mentally smell his pipe smoke. It's the most comforting thing ever.

On a more mundane level, the smell of easy start when it was my turn to help get dad's cab started in winter on the school run.

First school paint was a great smell too. I used to love painting the top of the pot and then peel it off 5 mins later it was so thick and quick drying

[Felix]

Calamine Lotion would be another. My mum always had a bottle. Came in handy for my brother who pissed me off one day when playing on a rockery. I pushed the fucker down and watched him in slow motion rolling through nettles. Nice hot day in the early 70's and he never had a top on We were forever getting stung from some plant or insect and forever walking around looking rather pink

[MrLongbeard]

Ahhh, school discos

[dern]

Standard pg tips tea bag tea... every time I fell off my push bike or hurt myself my mum would make me a cup of standard tea with loads of sugar. Fucking hate the stuff, still do.

[Trinity765]

Coal Tar soap and Dettol, the smell of my Nan and Grandad's bathroom. My Grandad always had Coal Tar soap, a proper man's soap and my Nan had Shield soap. She also used to put a cap full of Dettol in our bath water turning it milky.

The smell of the Coal Tar was the most dominant and takes me right back to the 70s.

[Mr. Dazzle]

My Grandad always had Coal Tar soap, a proper man's soap

Somewhat ironic too, given that it's really nice for office dwelling sensitive skin like mine

[demographic]

Just that whiff of fox scent I occasionally get when out on a walk, reminds me of the fox den just down the fell from our farm when one of my brothers pointed it out.
Not as.something that was a problem to our sheep herd cos they didn't bother them* (we didn't have any poultry mind) but just something that was interesting to note.

Now even when when walking through town I catch a whiff and know that scent and know that a fox has been near recently.

It's something that takes me back to being on the side of that fell, under the big stone I used to climb all over.

*My mother once pointed out that in knocking on 30 years sheepfarming there was only one time where she thought a fox might have killed a lamb and even then she suspected it was dead already and carrion.
They used to scoff the afterbirth but had to compete with the mother ewe, our sheepdog and crows for that.
Crows were far more of a problem and have been known to peck the eyes out of lambs and sometimes the tongue.

[Wossname]

Lifebuoy.

There seems to be a worrying personal hygiene theme developing in here….

[Yorick]

Ice cream vans and generators at Goose Fair used to smell lovely I assume diesel was different in the 60s

Coal tar soap

Coal generally

Raspberries nicked from the local allotments

2 strokes

Bel Ray oil. Smelled gorgeous. It seemed that all the KH triples used it so associated the lovely sound with the lovely smell

[Taipan]

Coal Tar soap and Dettol, the smell of my Nan and Grandad's bathroom. My Grandad always had Coal Tar soap, a proper man's soap and my Nan had Shield soap. She also used to put a cap full of Dettol in our bath water turning it milky.

The smell of the Coal Tar was the most dominant and takes me right back to the 70s.

I used to use Wrighst Coal Tar Soap until Mrs Taipan said I smelt like a vets!