It's like standing in front of your house when you were a child, looking through the window and net curtains at the screen of a black and white television set.......nothing really seems clear or even real, but I do sort of remember having a stamping tantrum in front of my mother about having one of those old fashioned creamy ice creams ( you know the sort that had a square wafer cornet and an ice cream you had to unwrap before you could place the two together)
I think I was being a bit of a bastard (even then you have the realisation that you've pushed it a little too far) and the next thing I knew we were off to the sweet shop (the one with the steps)
My mother bought me the ice cream and I think bashed me in the gop with it.....
Gawd, that's an awful thing to do, isn't it? even if I was being a little sod and basically deserved it ( if I saw this today I would stand and applaud believe me!)
However on reflection I think the memory is a bit of a false one.....perhaps the real truth lies in a playful joust of sorts rather than a rather cruel lesson of manners I certainly would like to think it was.Perhaps it didn't actually happen at all?- (more likely)
.... but the whole thing did get me to thinking of how easy it is to fool yourself and strip any objectivity you may possess, away from the truth of long distant situations and memories.
I am thinking a great deal about memories at the moment. My collection of personal reflections from the village elders has been intriguing as it is challenging. Many contraindications abound, with conflicting information surfacing on every taped interview. Sometimes it is not easy to work out the actual truth, especially as in some cases, 70 or even 80 years have passed by, but I have come to realise that if I cannot actually be sure my mother slapped me with an ice cream in 1969 or so, why worry too much about details.....
as my mother used to say
"It'll all come out in the wash"
hey ho
Haha, Chuck's favourite saying is 'It'll all come out in the wash.' Which is particularly frustrating when I'm sure that 'it' won't lol.
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting how people witnessing the same situation see it differently. My sisters and brothers memories are not always the same as mine. It sometimes is how we reacted and how our sensitivities perceived it. We lived the same life, but it affected us differently.
ReplyDeleteI did a quick shake of the head when you described the ice cream you had. I remember getting ice cream cones like that (ice cream wrapped in paper that you put on the square wafer) back in the 50's and 60's in Bronx, NY. When I have mentioned this to other people, they never remember tham. I was so happy to hear that someone else from so far away also heard of them. My memory was correct.
It's almost funny how people can remember things - so differently - same place, same time, same people involved and everyone tells a different story about it. Doesn't matter if two people were involved or a hundred - all see a different angle.
ReplyDeleteI do not remember ice cream like that. Wrong age, perhaps? Or location?
I always find it interesting that different people recall their early childhood in very different ways. Some people I've met seem to be able to recall every tantrum and fart whereas I can barely recall anything, although sometimes an episode will shoot like a bolt into my head. I always kind of thought that them remembering and me not must mean that they had a much more enjoyable childhood than mine but now I'm older and wiser I know that isn't the case as I was a very fortunate and rather happy kid. I guess it just means that I have a crappy memory!
ReplyDeletecraig
ReplyDeletetoo true
I remember very little about my childhood
I have a strange memory. I can remember conversations word for word from early childhood, but where I left my garden hoe yesterday is a mystery! Oh, and the ice cream cones and wafers; of course I remember them.
ReplyDeleteI believe we are definitely the result of our memories, real or imagined. They are the framework of our psyche and you could have seen it happen to someone or TV and “internalized it” ….but the bottom line it made an impression on you. It is odd how even as an adult you can see something and you empathize with it so strongly it can become a memory for you, real or not. I do believe it leaves the same imprint.
ReplyDelete(So true “Starting Over” and “Craig” above, it’s amazing how we see the same event but interpret it differently. I suppose that’s why police don’t always trust “eye witness account” because people modify details internally.)
Not to babble on (but this subject is fascinating to me) a friend once saw a therapist that suggested she imagine a different past than she had. The goal to (I suppose) erase the bad memories and replace them with good. I’ve considered doing the same thing but I’m rather afraid I would just turn into a bad rendition of Sally Field in Sybil!
Years ago, I read a book where a character said, "All memories are suspect." And it was then I started to realize just how much we all change memories in our heads.
ReplyDeleteThere is no truth and everything is the truth.
Great post John!
Hehe.
ReplyDeleteI have had dreams that were so real I questioned my hubby about this or that, only to eventually work out that it was indeed a dream.
Have a great day!
Funny that, just thinking about my own childhood lately John, Funny how some things stick in the memory whilst others are lost but then something sparks the memory and you think - that was me?
ReplyDeleteRegards,
John W
My sister has a lot of these. Whenever mum finds anything of mine, sis claims its hers - even though she doesnt want it???!!! I think if the items turn out to be worth anything (as my stuff is now vintage!!!) its her way of staking a claim. xxxx
ReplyDeleteIf you listened to V. and I reminisce about our childhoods John...you would think we grew up in different families!
ReplyDeleteMemory is definitely selective!
I'm fortunate to still have friends I've known since my childhood, and it always amazes me how differently we view experiences we shared. Of course, all of us tint our memories with shades of our own ego, but even things that are basic facts are seen differently. I like the saying that if you live long enough, you can mold history into whatever you want it to be. That's what I'm going to do: wait until the others have passed and then write my own version. If I can still make my feeble fingers work on a keyboard. Hmmm. Maybe I'll write that now and just save the file.
ReplyDeleteI would suggest that the path you are going down with your older villagers was always going to bring out different versions of events. Event recall changes with the telling and over periods of time. A famous example was a message sent back by runners to headquarters from the front line "Send reinforcements! We are going to advance!". It was relayed by word of mouth from runner-to-runner. The last runner staggered into headquarters and blurted out "Send two and sixpence! We are going to a dance!"
ReplyDeleteEach of your villagers will have ordered their memories to accommodate the version of events they can best live with to suit their ideas of what actually took place. It's common and that's why contemporaneous evidence to support memory recall is the most valid form of evidence.
Have you asked any of your respondents if they kept diaries?
I used to play a trick on my mother, and she fell for it EVERY time - poor thing. She would produce a pudding topped with cream, and I would sniff at it say, "Is this cream alright? It smell a bit off to me." Then I would push it toward her nose and, as she sniffed, ram it into her proboscis gently, so she had a great dollop on the end...
ReplyDeleteI was that bastard.
john
ReplyDeleteGood Idea!!!
ton
why am I not surprised?
This is why the police get so frustrated...5 witnesses see and crime and all 5 versions are different! There's probably some truth in what you remember...but whether you remember it exactly as it happened who knows! There are several reasons my sister and I don't get along...one of them is because in the past when I recounted a memory of my childhood she'd say I was totally wrong and it never happened that way...I know that some of what I remember is true...maybe not her truth but mine! But my memories are dismissed like I'm a chicken that doesn't know enough to come in out of the rain! It got old after a while so I gave it up! Don loved my memories whether they were correct or not and I loved his, we just accepted what each of us remembered from our past! Did you ever ask your Mom?
ReplyDeleteT & B
ReplyDeleteI would NEVER have asked her! EVER!
Memory is strange thing - unreliable largely... but then you've just reminded me of those box shaped ice creams and I can picture them vividly.
ReplyDeleteI believe the sweet shop was Hicksons, just down from your Dad's shop. Mr Hickson wore a grey caretakers coat and had brylcreamed hair and perfectly polished shoes. The freezer was huge and grey with big heavy doors on the top. I remember those square ice creams so well. My treat was popping in for 2 ounces of midget gems after sunday school, served in a cone shaped paper bag. I have very few childhood memories too - but strange that your story triggered such a vivid recall for me? I believe it is now a kebab shop! xxx
ReplyDeleteI remember those ice creams, we called them icecream slices. The wafers were a particularly unpleasant shade of pink.
ReplyDeleteI don't have many memories of my chhildhood, so I suppose it must have been happy - or boring.
nia
ReplyDeletemy goodness you are right...
the shop was always filled with jars of sweets in jars.....
across the road (the last but one shop at the top of the high street) was another sweetshop smaller and run by a fat lady as I recall.....
when we meet we can have a good reminiss of where each shop was!
remember the fishmonger with the dirty green fish tank>?>
x
Nostalgia just ain't what it used to be ! Love the comments so true to life.
ReplyDeleteYeeeesss! I'd totally forgotten about that one!I do remember the fishmongers opposite - with Morris stores next door then!Looking forward to the joint wallow down memory lane....maybe over a champagne or 2?! Can't wait cariad! Nx
ReplyDeleteI have pleasant memories from my childhood with my cousins and family and not so pleasant from my teenage years. But it is funny how you remember the memory. But my Grandmother also always said "it will come out in the wash" and surprisingly she was right!
ReplyDelete