Not a sound from the pavement

[venta]

This week's stack of library books included Arthur & George. On the train in to work this morning, the first chapter introduced me to both the gentlemen.

One of the things which came up in George's description is that he doesn't have a particular memory that he regards as "his first memory", and had never considered that he ought, or that it was normal, to have such a thing.

I have never been aware of having an earliest memory. I have very, very vague memories of visiting my Nana, who died when I was 3. They are so vague that I wouldn't even really call them memories, more impressions - and even then, I can't be totally sure that they haven't been formed from me being told about her when I was older.

I do wonder that one of my difficulties in pin-pointing an earliest memory is lack of reference points. People often say that they remember being in such-and-such a house, and they know that the family moved from that house when they were two. Or they remember a holiday their parents took them on at a certain age.

We didn't move house when I was a child, and our family holidays were (and still are!) always in the same place. Obviously there were trips to particular places that would come with a date attached, but whenever the mother says "do you remember..." the answer is usually "no", unless it happened much later in life.

I have the fixed points of the deaths of my Nana, and also of my Grandad (when I was 6). I have reasonably clear memories of Grandad, so I certainly have memories from before the age of 6 1/2. Most other things which can be pinned to a time - playgroup, starting school etc belong in the vague-impression category. Perhaps when people talk about their earliest memories, they also are relating only a vague sense of an event rather than what I might now call a memory of something.

Do you have an earliest memory? If so, how old were you when it was formed? How can you be sure it's the earliest?

Comments

[snathe.livejournal.com]

My two earliest memories I can't put an absolute date on, but I know the dates between when they happened and the order in which they did so. The first one took place sometime between Christmas 1979 and April 16th 1981 - me running across the front garden of the second house we lived in after I was born, having been scared by the chimes of the grandfather clock in our next door neighbour's house. We were definitely in that particular house by Christmas 1979 and I can very accurately pinpoint the end date for the range of that memory because we emigrated to America on that day, thanks to finding some old paperwork at my parents house a few years ago (namely some old post addressed to that house, postmarked Dec 1979, and my Mum's old passport with a US immigration Visa stamp, dated April 16th 1981.) The second memory happened sometime between April 16th 1981 and October 2nd 1982, which are the dates between when we lived in America. Again, this involves me being scared and running away from something - this time a rather large spider on the back garden gate of the house we lived in over there. I seem to recall it was summer when this happened, but I really can't remember if it was the summer of '81 or '82. Interesting that my two earliest memories involve being scared by something, though!

[venta.livejournal.com]

I'm sure Freud would have a field day :)

Lots of people do seem to have earliest memories associated with some strong emotion, though, and I guess kids do spend quite a lot of time being scared of things!

[ceb.livejournal.com]

Aaaaaaa people collision, how do you two know each other? :-)

[venta.livejournal.com]

That would be snow_leopard's fault :)