Those were the days
‘Our first memory is a key that unlocks the adult persona’ says the article about earliest memories in the current issue of The Economist’s ‘lifestyle’ magazine Intelligent Life.
The piece goes on to detail the first memories of a random bunch of people – comedian Bill Bailey, racing driver Stirling Moss, Mike Skinner (i.e. The Streets), poet Blake Morrison etc. Of course, all of them have have very meaninful first memories.
Rent-a-philosopher Alain de Botton’s earliest memory is of a dream where the rails that he is leaning on give way, forcing him to tumble into the water. The memory ‘captures my life-long anxiety about how things are going to turn out… I have become a writer in a semi-conscious attempt to increase the number of psychological railings around me. Books are my safety-nets.’
Professor Susan Greenfield, now a neuroscientist, claims that one of her earliest memories was realising that different people had different perceptions of the colour red. Explorer Ranulph Fiennes remembers having to find his way home from school one day in South Africa by himself, a distance of 5 miles.
Yeah right, these are people’s first memories! They all sound suspiciously convenient don’t you think?
Here’s my first memory:
I am sitting in the back of the car with our old English sheep dog, Dougal. We live in Melbourne and Dad is driving us up into the Dandenongs, a nearbye mountain range, to take Dougal to the kennels because we are going away on holidays. I don’t seem to feel sad about this though – I am enjoying watching the tops of the tall trees whizz by and ‘Those Were the Days’ by Mary Hopkin is playing on the car radio and I rather like it.
What does this say about me? Well, I don’t own a dog, I don’t drive, I don’t own a copy of ‘Those Were the Days’ and I don’t make whimiscal car adverts with annoying soundtracks, but umm… I still like looking at views out of windows whilst listening to music. Sadly, I’ve yet to make a career out of this.
Tags: dirty nostalgia, mindless minutiae
May 12th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
My earliest memories are – being barely able to walk, but knowing how to work the record player, and repeat playing Perry Como’s ‘Timing’, Andy Williams ‘Can’t Get Used To Losing You’ Being fascinated by the way the singles dropped down the spindle and their labels..in particular Frank Sinatra’s head going round and round (at 33 rpm) when a Reprise album played – (or that Capitol label’s shade of grey, that made me think of the taste of grapefruit). But my love of music it turns out is genetic – it’s a long story and I may blog it one day.
Finding an Afghan dog in the garden and thinking it was donkey (I’m still terrified of dogs)
Seeing these Batman cartoons and being hooked instantly (I’m still a huge Batman and comics fan)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZqUSQzukOI
May 12th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
Maybe the first memories do unlock the adult personality then, going by your experience PM! I don’t physically remember the turntable going round and round, but virtually all of my early memories are related to hearing particular pieces of music. Do you still like Perry Como and Andy Williams?!
That is also really interesting that the Capitol grey tasted of grapefruit! Do you still taste colours? I think that there is a scientific description for this – it’s quite a unique trait isn’t it?
May 12th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
How would you even know what your first memory was? It can’t be written down in a diary, and if it’s something quite trivial, such as looking out of a window at the sea (for example) how could you honestly prove what day that took place on, how old you were at the time, etc?
It’s widely believed amongst my family that my earliest memory was visiting Stonehenge, which left such a massive impact on me as a little two year old that I can still remember laughing and running under the arches even now. I can’t think of anything else from around the same period, so I’m sure that probably wins, unless my vague memory of eating a digestive biscuit and hearing Gallagher and Lyle’s “Heart on my Sleeve” on the radio stems from around the same point. And hey, Chartstats seems to suggest that it might. I still like digestive biscuits, but I’m not wholly convinced by that song as an adult. Nor am I a druid, so bang go all those theories. Unless an ever-continuing over-consumption of digestive biscuits counts in some way.
May 12th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
It’s hard to be sure of the chronology with early memories, but a few stand out- a) being wrapped in a blanket on my brother-in-law’s lap while Jim Reeves was playing in the background, b) being fascinated by the high-kicking, co-ordinated legs of the Tiller Girls on Sunday Night at the London Palladium, and c) sitting in my pushchair while my Mum zipped up the clear plastic rain cover. I remember the noise that the raindrops made, and feeling very cosy (explains why I’m a lazy cow as an adult, I suppose).
Not as profound as Alain de Boton’s, I grant you…
May 12th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
Well I don’t the music thing was unlocked, more there in the coding and I was drawn to it – whereas other people are drawn to sport or mechanics.
No, I don’t play either of those tunes anymore – although the strings on the Andy Williams thing takes me right back everytime I hear them, and the more I think of it so many earliest memories are musical-based and can be almost carbon dated by this
A couple of others are literally going mad for Band Of Gold (which I guess is at the root of my Funky Friday feature)
And being terrified by Spirit In The Sky (I’m over it now)
May 12th, 2009 at 9:16 pm
Gosh… I have little recollection of anything in particular (it’s ALL so far away, sniff sniff!), but like PM, i remember records being there right from the off. Someone in the family gave me one of those big box record players with a lift up lid – bright red it was. They also gave me armfuls of 45’s they no longer wanted, I still have them all (not the box record player tho)… Tommy Steele, Strawbs, The Goons, Searchers… I remember loading the thing up with what seemed like dozens of singles, I was fixated with the way the next record used to smash down so violently on top of the previous one… playing 45’s at 33 was scary, playing 33’s at 45 was funny!!
P
May 12th, 2009 at 9:59 pm
23Daves, that is very true but I can tend to date things by what house I lived in at the time and by interogating my parents about the order of events. The above did happen and my Dad confirms that I must have been around 3. Like PM, music usually ‘carbon dates’ things for me. Except in this case as I am not 43! And Stonehenge – what a memory. It must look MASSIVE to a two year old.
ISBW, I like the fact that you can remember the sound and the feeling in your pushchair. Two questions though: Is there any kind of valid psychological case for this ‘first memory maketh the man’ stuff and do you like Jim Reeves?!
PM, I think that you need to write a post about the genetics behind your music taste. I’m not fully convinced that there is any case for this in my family, but I’d be interested to hear yours. Your brother’s a big music buff too isn’t he?
Piley, I am jealous. I dreamed of people giving me all their records! What a fabulous gift for a child. Did those 7″s form the basis of your music taste?
May 13th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
I’m not sure, but I think mine might have been watching an orange and black football I was playing with float out to sea from a beach on the Isle of Man. Read into that what you will………..
May 13th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
It means, Ill Man, that you’ve always had a deep fascination with the sea and should have been a lifeguard. Or maybe that you’re not very good at football?
May 13th, 2009 at 7:35 pm
Definitely the latter. Still, I’m sure I could pay someone obscene piles of wedge to analyse that one and tell me something I already know…………..
May 15th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
I wouldn’t go so far as to say I like Jim Reeves, but in certain moods I would have a very strong emotional reaction to his voice. ‘Distant Drums’ for example could well have me in tears, though it’s a pretty terrible song.
I think the emotional tone of your early memories do say something about how you relate to your own childhood. Most people posting here seem to have very contented, easy associations, which is how it should be. And doesn’t music come up a lot?
June 1st, 2009 at 11:45 am
A personal first memory is that of being seated next to my father on the piano bench of his massive Bosendorfer piano at our home in Bratislava, Slovakia when I was 3 or 4 years old. I seem to recall making the mental connection between the fact that his fingers were making the sounds I was hearing. He was probably playing something by Mozart, his favorite composer. During my life, music has always been a major feature and now, some seventy years later, I am indeed addicted to the music of Mozart.
Those Were The Days on YouTube with Mary Hopkin.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5pkkAhETYg
For a personal connection with ‘Those Were The Days’ and the original Russian [Дорогой Длинною]:
http://jingreed.typepad.com/jingreeds_musings_from_th/2006/11/music_and_histo.html
June 1st, 2009 at 1:16 pm
Hello Gordon, thanks for stopping by and contributing your first memory – fascinating stuff. Music does seem to feature very strongly around here, maybe because it is such an emotional thing. Do you play the piano at all?
And thanks for your link to your post on ‘Those were the Days’. What a revelation! I never knew that the song was so old, nor indeed that it was originally Russian. Very interesting indeed!