“Sweet, sweet – the memories you gave to me,
You can’t beat – the memories you gave to me.”
From the Dean Martin song, “Memories are made of this”
According to an article I read today, the earliest memory
that most people have comes from when they were four years old.
This is true for me too.
My earliest memory is of my first day at primary school. I remember being excited to go there, and
then realising that I was going to be left alone to work things out in a
scary new world. So I felt abandoned
and started crying.
Or was that my first day in Japan? Or my first day after getting married? My memories are all a little confused.
But anyway, people usually don’t remember anything that
happened to them when they were zero, one, two or three years old. Reading that made me a little sad. After all, my son is now one year old. For all the effort I put into playing with
him, all the times I pick him up after he has fallen, all the dirty nappies
I have helped him change – he won’t remember any of it.
“What have you ever done for me?” he will ask, and mean it.
I suppose that the only comforting thought is that I don’t
remember my mum wiping my bottom either.
But the article I read was about an extremely rare
group of people who can remember almost every incident in their life. Researchers have only found about sixty of
these people anywhere in the world.
One of these people, an autistic woman with an
amazing memory, was interviewed on the BBC recently. Her earliest memory is from when she was
about one week old. She can remember
being wrapped in a pink blanket. She
remembers being able to recognise her mother around that time. She can remember the first time she decided
to try to walk, to get a closer look at a fascinating object that was
near her.
Still, there are at least some limits to memory. She doesn’t remember anything that happened
before she was one week old. And it’s
probably just as well.
Vocabulary:
primary school – British English for elementary school
to work something out – to solve something; to become able
to do or deal with something
to abandon (passive, to be abandoned) – to leave something,
and to stop looking after or caring for it
a nappy – British English for a diaper; things worn by
babies or others who cannot use a toilet
rare – uncommon; unusual
an incident – one event which has happened
autistic – having autism, a mental condition present from
early childhood which often causes difficulties in using language and forming
relationships
fascinating – extremely interesting
“It’s just as well.” – of a situation or outcome, it is
better this way; it is lucky that it happened like this, etc.
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