Not a sound from the pavement
Dec. 16th, 2011 11:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ventaThis 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?
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?
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no subject
Date: 2011-12-16 05:33 pm (UTC)Ooh, yes! I remember this, too. Though if free milk for over-7s went out 1971 it was old news by the time we were saying it. Do under-7s still get free milk at school? I have no idea.
I also remember having the obvious arguments about progressive taxation and its effect on high earners with a friend at school around the 1979 election
Either you're slightly older than me, or you were alarmingly precocious ;)
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Date: 2011-12-16 05:45 pm (UTC)I ought to know this. I think the answer is no. They got milk at nursery, but that was definitely paid for by me. At school, last year, in Reception (age 4 and 5) my older son did get milk, but we had to pay for it. This year (Year 1, age 5 and 6) he's not having to take milk money in every week, and I think that means he's not getting any. I'll have to ask him.
Either you're slightly older than me, or you were alarmingly precocious ;)
Bit of both, I think. :-)
It helped that my parents and my friend's parents both believed strongly in answering questions when children asked them, and we'd both asked about the election. I'm assuming that high rates of taxation for high earners was a major issue in the campaigns in 1979 - otherwise we really were both alarmingly precocious.
I've lost touch with the friend in question, but I heard from my brother the other day that he's now an extremely high-flying barrister. Which didn't surprise me. I also suspect we have swapped positions from the ones we held in 1979 - I'm now very strongly in favour of progressive taxation and wealth redistribution. You do get lefty barristers but it's not the default position.