One of the great fears of getting old is what will happen to our memory. When we're young, we don't worry too much about it. We're aware that we have failings, and we know that others have different failings - and different strengths - but we accept them, if unhappily. As a school teacher I was always deeply envious of colleagues who seemed to have blotting-paper recall when it came to children's names. I remember, as a probationary teacher in my first job in the English Midlands, witnessing an old harridan of the classrooms scold a small girl for some trivial offence by prefacing her tirade with the words, "Emma! I taught your dear grandmother, Grace, and your poor mother, Jemima, and I never, never had such behaviour from either of them!" How the hell did she remember their names? Or did she make them up in the certain knowledge that the poor little mite would be too terrified to correct her?
As I age I cannot rely on my brain cells to retrieve information like they used to, certainly not as quickly. The names of places and people, and our daily attack on The Times quick crossword, which we do as we were told it was a good memory exercise, are a lottery with the grey matter so selective. And yet... I was appointed to that same school as teacher in charge of a small geology department. Since the town was in one of the most geologically rich areas in the whole UK, I was like a small child placed in charge of the sweeties department. I had a keen group of students for A level, some of whom were prepared to spend weekends out in the countryside with me, mostly paddling up fast-running streams or knee deep in glutinous quarry mud, looking for rare fossils. One day one of my students found one. I hadn't a clue what it was, so we sent it to the British Museum of Natural History which, in those days, ran a wonderful service dealing with public enquiries such as ours. The next thing we knew, a professor of geology at Southampton University phoned the school in a state of great excitement to say that he was on his way up to see us: the little beastie we'd found in the Llandovery Shales was the only specimen of Osculocystis monobrachiolata in the country. The only other one, also from the Midlands, resided in a museum in New York.
So I can remember fossil names from decades ago, many without any such exciting connection - Paradoxides davidis, Reticuloceras reticulatum, Didymograptus murchisoni, to name but a few - yet I struggle to recall the name of a neighbour or the cat we had at our last house. Mostly it doesn't bother me as I now accept that most people quietly shake their heads during conversations as I scratch around for an elusive name, and if I'm by myself I find that, if I go away and do something else for a few minutes, the name will suddenly pop back. However, if my present state doesn't bother me, there is one thing of which I am absolutely terrified.
I'm in the process of writing the second book in my three-book contract with PaperBooks. It's to be similar to Justice Bird but different. Like all my books, one of my key requirements is that it should convey a vivid sense of place. Obviously, in Justice Bird this was secondary to the action, while in some of my more literary efforts the description of the environment is almost central to the story. So what I fear is the loss of memory of what it feels like to be in a place. Look at that picture at the top of this page again: you can't see the heat but I can FEEL it. It has a texture, a presence, it's enveloping, overwhelming, deadening, heavy. Am I at risk of losing memories such as that? Will I, one day soon, sit in a bath chair staring out at our lovely view and not be able to remember that beach? In other words, will I live in a past-less present, my only pleasure the spoonfuls of lemon jelly a carer shovels down my throat?
I'll remember how to swallow. I'll remember how to breath. I'll probably remember that, if I pick up a coal from the fire, it'll hurt.
Memory lifts us from the animal to the human. Memory is what we spent millions of years developing as Ardipithecus, Australopithecus and then Homo evolved on the plains of Africa. Memory doesn't hold the door, it unlocks the universe.
You've put me in mind of an incident from my own period of teaching rounds, Jon (thereby prompting a memory). I was observing the Head of English, who might have been one of the meaner descendents of Genghis Khan, begin her lesson by demanding that one of the students tell her what the significance of this particular day was. When the first student couldn't answer, she tore into another and then another, lamenting at the ignorance of each at not knowing the answer. I was beginning to hate her by this point and the pleasure she appeared to take from humiliating the kids, but was also breaking into a cold sweat because I hadn't a clue what was so significant about the day either and was terrified she might ask me. All I could think of was that it was Friday and that it was significant because the weekend would be starting in a few hours, but this seemed an irreverent if not profane thought. It wasn't Guy Fawkes Day and it wasn't Halloween and I couldn't think of any literary event that would make this day so important to her English lesson. After torturing the kids for a few minutes, she turned to me and I could feel the blood draining from my head. "This is terrible, don't you think?" (I nodded, smiled, but it was probably more of a tremble.) "What do you think pupils learn in History these days?" (I shrugged, shook my head, and wondered.) Then she slammed the flat of her hand on her desk and shouted: "Trafalgar Day! Today is Trafalgar Day for goodness sake!"
They stared, I stared. Then I had the good sense to nod in despair and shake my head at one and the same time, showing my disappointment in the students, without, I hope, exposing my relief at not being asked.
I knew about the Battle of Trafalgar, of course, but had never known until that moment that it was commemorated annually on 21st October. However, the descendant of Genghis Khan ensured that this particular memory and piece of information has remained firmly implanted in my head ever since. I'm sure there are many wonderful memories that have become detached from lack of being revisited, but this one just won't budge. However, I have attempted to redress this by celebrating every Friday the significance of P.O.E.T.'S. Day: Pee Off Early, Tomorrow's Saturday!
Posted by: Paul | November 14, 2007 at 10:25 AM