Golden Memories: Sundries

It's always fascinated me how certain experiences are fixed in memory, while many others are lost. In some obvious cases the reason appears to be reinforcement through repetition, but in other cases it is probably the very uniqueness of the experience that imbeds itself in the mind.

My memories, particularly the very early ones, seem to be almost random. I recall, for example, the dining table sagging with goodies when somebody important was coming around for tea, and how I wondered what crab sandwiches tasted like. I remember being told off for playing with matches, and how my mum told me a boy had held a brick over my head in the park.

Horrified by a lifesize Michelin man at the fair, losing a tooth at the horse races, being given unsharpened pencils by the dentist. A spectre over our future as the divorce was discussed, meeting a succession of ancient neighbours, maintenance money separated into piles for the bills, ludo and whist on Sunday, fish and chips on Saturday, a draw in the sideboard which seemed to have everything possible in it. Water pistols in a cold bathroom, giant spiders in the small bedroom, watching a cartoon slideshow under the double bed.....

Where did all that dust come from?

And what happened in those early years that I can't remember?