h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I have memories of before I was 4 when we moved away from London.

So why do you want to delve into our deep psyches, MMF?

"I deliberately remembered what it was to be two"

Yes! That's exactly what my memory is that I particularly remembered I was two, and how awesome I was being so fast - fascinating.

That's also interesting about not having memories of some things, like Icy North said - I find that as well, where I work fast and do a lot in a short space of time, but the tasks bypass my brain somehow so I'm not sure what I've done, but I can see the results in my outbox.

TC, I was curious as to what types of memories researchers had. Where they due to bad things that happened, or good? True memories or memories enhanced by people recounting their past.

With my Mother going through the early phases of dementia she has been regaling my G/f with details from met birth up to the age of 10, and these are often at variance to mine.

My earliest 'known and owned' memory is probably from the age of 5, when we moved from Burton upon Trent to Ramsgate. I can distinctly remember losing my matchbox/dinky yellow Citroen Pallas car. It was really upsetting.

Also about that time, I recall my first (or at least the first I was aware of) colour dream. It consisted of a distinct red cross on an ambulance. The rest was monochrome.

The other, of that age, was going into my parents to declare I could whistle. It was around 05.00 and they weren't best impressed.

However there are many things I've forgotten, most involving names. I cannot remember any of my Junior School friends' names, a mere half dozen of senior school, none of my College colleagues, except my flatmates and ex-fiancée.

I was reminiscing with a mate, school-friend and oft while sidekick a fortnight ago, and I pondered, subsequently, why I remembered some events, but had completely forgotten (blanked out) others.

Bad memories? Billy No-mates? Just useless at names? I don't know. Interestingly, on the Billy No-mates front, none have contacted me via social media, except those I had a close bond with, or had been a college flat-mate with.

So, there are my reasons for asking.

And if I were to list all my memories, and turn them into a book, a Publisher would be certain to put it in the fiction category, even with testimonials, and authenticity from others.

MMF



And thanks for sharing folks.

Happy to divulge some of the more 'interesting' memories.

Not a particularly early memory but one I found quite striking. Many years ago I had a girlfriend in Guildford and, on leave for a few days from the RN, I stayed with her at her parents. After dinner on the first night, we retired to the front "parlour" (quite an old-fashioned house) where there was an upright piano.

"C'mon Caroline, give us a tune" said my girlfriend's father. I was surprised at this as, in the few months I'd known her Caroline had never mentioned being able to play. After a bit of encouragement, she sat at the piano and I settled back, expecting to hear renditions of "Knees up Mother Brown" or the like.

What happened next was amazing. The most beautiful music filled the room, more, filled "me". For about ten minutes the most glorious sounds came from the piano - I've never before or since experienced music that I could feel, see, even taste. It seemed to get inside me and flow through my veins. When she stopped, I was exhausted!

It turned out Caroline was an experienced concert pianist and regularly gave solo performances to hundreds in the Guildford Theatre.

One of those rare stunning moments of beauty.

She dumped me three weeks later for a submariner

Pianists are sometimes quite shy about revealing their talents.

Submariners aren't.

PP.

There's a theory that children have an episodic memory - that is, they remember everything that happens to them without analysing it. Their brain fills up around age 4 so they re-organise their memory into a different method, where scenes are analysed and abstracted - instead of remembering for example every detail of a cow, you just remember that there was a cow and refer it to your generic cow memory. What you lose in detail, you gain in storage capacity.

This happens around aged four, and as a result, the child loses almost all their memories of before this time, but can usually remember pretty accurately from then on.

Certainly my infant memory has only two things from before I was four but lots after that.

Somehow I never lost the memories of the tonsillectomy or the frosted cupcakes at my sister's school....

My tonsillectomy was similar but different.

I'd had the operation (that I don't remember) and vaguely do remember being given Joe 90 stuff, although I remember nothing of the series, or what I was given, but it dates the operation.

What I DO remember is the family visiting, and my ice cream/lolly melting by the side of me and me, futiliy, wishing my family would leave as my throat was worse than sandpaper.

By the time they left, the ice cream/lolly was just a pool and of no use, so just water (they didn't replace it!)

MMF

I remember visiting my maternal grandparents in Germany when I was 4 years old. There was a farm nearby and we'd get milk from there. No pasteurization, no treatment of any kind, no health problems. And it tasted great.

I have an older sister who was the year above me in school. I remember a teacher saying to her, "Why are you so thin when your sister's so chubby?" I was only about 6 years old but it still hurt.

I remember being spanked for something that wasn't my fault. My sister and I were supposed to go home from school together. One day my class didn't finish on time. She wasn't outside the school, so I waited for her. A friend of hers came up and told me that she'd already left. I set off after her as fast as I could. I caught up enough to call to her to wait. She looked round and then ran off. There was no way I could catch up after that. When I got home Dad was convinced that I'd deliberately dawdled and gave me 8 whacks on the bottom with a slipper, one for each year of my age. I wasn't even allowed to give my side of the story. The injustice has stayed with me and makes me anti-corporal punishment.

My Auntie Ethel's large blue knickers.

We all had an Auntie Ethel didn't we?

I would have been about 10 and there was some sort of minor family do going on. There was probably alcohol involved and most likely music and some sort of dancing. A skirt was raised. A 10 year old was confronted with what now, in my memory banks, was a large expanse of blue for a short and dreadful moment.

I really don't think I was being groomed, but on reflection, I do seem to have been traumatised! .

PP.

I had an Aunt Vyrene, but not an Aunt Ethel.