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
