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

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Ooh I have a few. I remember having a tantrum in the library car park and being SO ANGRY. I remember further down the same bit of pavement the exact spot where I said something rude to Brown Owl and got a lifetime ban from joining any uniformed youth group but not what it was I said. I remember lying on the floor at playgroup having fallen off the slide and hit my head, looking up at the picture of the queen on the wall, and Mrs Darvill (who I presume is now dead) shouting at me to get up and stop snivelling, and I remember having a dream of climbing up a climbing frame at playgroup and getting stuck in a dip on the top of it and rolling from side to side not being able to get off, and being scared to climb it the next day. Those must have happened when I was about 3. I also vaguely remember falling backwards into a bucket of cold water while my dad was washing the car and my parents laughing at me, and I remember stepping out into the snow for the first time in a red playsuit and crapping myself in surprise, so I was probably two-ish.

All of these sensory and emotional things are quite brief but quite detailed. So I remember the smell of playgroup and the sensation of cold water and exactly where in the room I was standing and what the floor felt like but not what anybody's faces looked like or the words they said.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I do have a memory of lying on the floor in my parents' hallway having a tantrum and my parents (whose approach to tantrums was to demonstrate their futility by ignoring them[*]) walking backwards and forwards between the dining room and the kitchen and stepping over me.

It's very interesting what you say about being able to remember the sensory and emotional parts, because that's almost exactly the opposite of my memories. I don't remember why I was having a tantrum, or what it felt like, or how I felt about my parents ignoring me, I just remember the fact that it happened. I rarely remember the smell of anything (until, of course, I smell it again) and most of my memories are very low on visual/sensory details.

[*] Except for the tantrum I had at Pickering castle, where they ran away, hid behind a wall, laughed a lot and took photos. Bastards. In their defence, (a) they never showed the photos to my friends and (b) I did give up on tantrums pretty quickly.

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

they ran away, hid behind a wall, laughed a lot and took photos. [...] I did give up on tantrums pretty quickly.

Thanks for the parenting tip! :-)

[exspelunca.livejournal.com]

Don't remember the one in the hall but at Pickering Castle, we just walked away, you were on a huge grassed area and could come to no harm. We didn't hide, nor did we take your photo - that was of you doing a handstand later.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Ah, that's the photo I was thinking of (judging from the usual quality of my handstands). I maintain I've been misinformed by my father ;)