averilburystedmunds: Faded Voices; Distant Lives.

"Memories I had locked away, have begun to break free, like

shards of ice fracturing off an arctic shelf. In sleep, these

broken floes drift towards the morning light of remembrance.

Tan Twan Eng.

On our communal birthday, July 28th, 1941.
Aged 1, 5, 7, with our mother in the front
garden of 14, Lindhurst Lane, Mansfield.

A project, rather long in the making, is nearing completion. I have written down some Childhood Memories occasionally, over the last ten years or so. I am unsure as to where the impulse sprang from to do this; a feature of ageing perhaps? Although a friend’s example may have pushed me to actually make an effort with these early memories. John, an 84 year old friend in San Francisco, had a fund of interesting and amusing stories of events in his earlier life, in his head, and I urged him to write them down. He loved reading and wrote well and easily, so it would not have been a daunting task for him and yet, he never realistically embraced the idea. He pleaded laziness,

John in Santa Monica.

disinclination and the old chestnut: “But who on earth would be interested in them after me?” I did relate to the last cry! Who, indeed, might want to read the assorted memories of an eighty something person, of family events, feelings and personalities so long ago? That was exactly my remark to my elder daughter, then subsequently, to my son at his similar suggestion for me!! He was sure my grand-children would, perhaps now, perhaps eventually, find such a narrative fascinating. And maybe one or two from the wider family might enjoy these far-off tales. These were exactly the suggestions I had made to John, who continued resolutely to ignore me and died, about ten years ago, with nothing written to leave for his family. As no one in his family knew about my suggestion, his memories are not missed but they would most certainly have been relished had he made the effort.

My sister, Heather, visiting me
in Bruges. She died
one year ago.

My sister, Esme, on her 80th birthday
in 2016. She died in 2017.

My own small effort has been ready for months, despite occasional, and chiefly unnecessary, tweaks, and meanwhile, over the past year, I have moved countries, towns, residences, downsized significantly and mourned my sister, my best friend who died a year ago. Even so, the short text is as complete as I feel able to make it, and I have added the texts of four tributes I have given at family funerals over the last several years as they incidentally contain information from the past. And additionally, as a small, final flourish, there are copies of several old photographs at the end. My local grand-daughter, currently about to begin her third year at Uni. offered to put the various articles, reports, memories into one document for ease of printing and then on to a USB, something which I did not know how to do. She has, in fact, done this several times as each time of transference from one to the other, something has slightly changed; a space missed or inappropriately created; a photo caption omitted, etc. Eventually, the result was complete.

Niamh, the modest amanuensis
and producer.

After a trip to a local printer who printed me one example, a copy with a card cover and plastic curly-wurly black spine. Not beautiful but I felt it would have to do as the only option available to me. However, Niamh, a/m grand-daughter, was pretty contemptuous of the result and offered to do it all online. And, to pass over the unnecessary detail about her sterling efforts, I now have two dozen beautiful little books with the above title. The whole undertaking is modest but I am thrilled that the appearance is so attractive and surprisingly professional, thanks to Niamh.

Fortuitously, I shall be able to distribute several next weekend when the family, plus many others, will be in a gathering of the clans in Perthshire for the wedding of my eldest grandson and his Gorgeous Girl! I expect nothing more than kind remarks but I secretly hope that one or two will be really interested in the contents and that possibly, at some future date, there might be someone in the family who can use some of the memories as background material for a film or a book. Now, that would be fun! And happily observed by me as I wander the Elysian Fields in search of good material for my next heavenly blog!