Mutterings and Musings

Sounds of Childhood

PROMPT: What smell or sounds brings back great memories of your childhood?

Old, old hymns. Sanky and Wesley and Mission Praise (okay, Mission Praise isn't old in quite the same way, it's more 80s than 1880s, but it's still an integral part of my childhood). Belters like "When the Roll is Called Up Yonder", "It is Well With My Soul", "Whosoever Will" and, whilst I don't particularly like it, "Bringing in the Sheaves" was an essential part of school harvest festival as well as a chapel favourite. Oh, and for reference I'm only in my thirties, but the hymns we sang in the church our parents took us to as kids make me feel about 95.
Very occasionally someone in the worship band will play something archaic and I'm torn between groaning and cheering - we're normally on a Bethel, Matt Redman, or at least Stuart Townsend (I love Stuart Townsend, but his style is very contemporary hymn-like rather than modern) level, so "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross", "How Great Thou Art", and "Jesus the Nazarene" seem quite out of place at times.

Cuckoos. We had a pair nesting in the field below our house, and that was the official Sound of Summer; you saw the swallows and heard the cuckoos, and Summer Was Here. I still live in a very rural area, but we don't seem to have cuckoos with their oh-so-distinctive cry of cook-coo, and I don't think I've heard one in over fifteen years.
Which now makes me very quite down. Thanks 02/04/21 prompt, I was in a good mood five minutes ago....