Memory Script 035

It is me and my sister, and she is sitting on the pram and she is two years younger that I am which it means it is a hot day in the front room of our council house which means it is probably juneish. I was born in September that means I am about two and three quarters. And the point of this memory. It’s, she is sitting on the pram and I am in the front room, we are both in the front room the curtains are drawn and it is a hot afternoon, my parents are busy in the kitchen, sweeping the chymeney and that was they let us for. It is something to do with the heat of the afternoon with the curtains drawn, and I can’t remember why the curtains were drawn to tell you the truth and it could it be that actually my sister was sleeping on the pram and that is why the curtains are drawn because she felt asleep and I am bored. And there is something to do with the heat but also on the table in front room there is my mother’s lipstick and this is an opportunity for me to make looks beautiful my sister like my mother and it is particularly the smell of the lipstick in the hot front room with the curtains drawn I particularly remember. And it is that kind of…. It is a very female smell, and it is very intimate smell and it is a comfortable smell and very…. I can’t remember whether I wake my sister up or whether she was already awake but I made her laugh and she looked as beautiful as my mum. And then my mum and dad came in and they laugh… because she was …. And there is a picture to probe it. I think why my memory stays with me it is because it is the first time I guess I can say I experienced shame because I made a mess of it… and that’s it.

Memory

Memory Script 034: Matthew Scott

The TV at my grandmother’s house. It was grey with wooden panels – or was that the cabinet it was in? – and next to it was a telephone on a table, one of those where you had to pull the dial around with a finger that made a noise as the dial spun back.

It felt like a full house. My grandmother’s house was a hub for the family and she had seven children – my mother and my aunts and uncles. She actually had eight children once but I never met one of them. His name was Anthony and he died. I think he was ten.

It feels, still feels, like everyone was there but that can’t be right. I might be remembering old photographs instead, like the one where my aunties had put make up on my uncle Chris and he looked embarrassed. Even my memories of that time have curved corners.

I definitely wanted a bottle of milky tea. I can see my hands stretching out for one. Everyone was watching Jaws. They close over my face as the shark swallows, Quint.

I clearly remember this but have no idea if it really happened or not because I have never asked anyone. Maybe I should call my mum and see if she remembers-
-Wow! My mother just called me! Just as soon as I had finished that sentence! Spooky.

I asked her about Jaws and she said she remembered. I was about three years old.

Memory Script

Memory Script 033: Dave John Norton

Ian James Gilligan was my best friend. He said his three names as one. We lived on a built cul-de-sac. He lived next door.
Mum and Dad had a Bedford ….. in those days. I was less than 4 years old. I know this because we moved away from there when I was four. We wer playing in the camper van. I somehow managed to let the brakes off. The van rolled down the hill with me in it.
Ian James Gilligan tried to hold it back – unsuccessfully- he was also three years old.
Neither of us were hurt- remarkably. Although my mum nearly gad a heart attack when se looked out of the kitchen window. Somehow the steering wheel made the van turn and come to a halt.

Memory Script

Memory Script 032

I am a toddler. Maybe two years old. On holiday by the River Thames at Henley. Two hundred miles from my home town of Widnes in Lancashire.

Widnes was a heavy chemical industry town and Henley would feel like a green paradise by comparison.

I’m with my father, mother and my older sister.

All around us there are families picnicking and relaxing – almost as if by the seaside. This is about 1956.

I remember watching lots of these people head down to the water’s edge and then dive in or jump in to go swimming. In this part of the river there were wooden floating perimeter beams to mark out this bathing area.

Something in my tiny brain must have clicked and told me that if everyone else was doing that then I should be doing it as well.

Up I get. Unnoticed by family. I toddle off to the water’s edge and suddenly I’m in the water, then under the water! Completely unable to swim of course.

I’m going down, down, down, sinking, drowning. Above me I can see the surface of the water, distorted and catching the sunlight. The water has a greenish hue. Bubbles surround me – all going upwards while I go down.

Then suddenly I have the image of my father breaking though the surface of the water and reaching down to rescue me. He was wearing a navy blue beret (as a sunhat), sunglasses that clipped onto his spectacles and baggy white tennis shorts.

(Luckily, back at home he ran the local swimming club and taught life saving.)

His hands reached out and grabbed me. I was rescued. I was safe.

Memory