As William Nearly Once Said, 'Much Ado About Nothing in Particular''.

    Made a visit to Home Bargains. Always favourite when life's a bit fraught; guaranteed to lift your spirits!
    Saw an old gentleman being 'instructed' by his daughter concerning pushing the trolley. I commiserated with him, 'we' geriatrics are used to the instructions of the young! (I talk to all and sundry when I'm out and about. Folk can always tell you to 'bugger off' but seldom do so. Thus you meet many interesting people. (People are far more interesting than inanimate objects!)
It turns out 'Edward' is Polish and a surprisingly sprightly eighty seven years of age. Edward settled in this country in 1947 and had apparently served with the Polish Air Force in the latter part of the war. (and was injured on occasion) He would be very young to do do but I have no reason to doubt his words. After the war he was a tailor by trade for many years. His mind was lively, and he was small in stature like myself. We have also in common,  including evidently the necessity of taking around twenty tablets per day to keep us alive! Edward, old friend, I salute you. Two old codgers together; ignored by the scurrying young passing by Rather useless we are now, but to hell with it, we've both done our bit for the world!
    Fifteen minutes out of my life, an unimportant fifteen minutes but interesting nevertheless. 'Look, listen and learn.' Even in such an innocuous place as Home Bargains. The couple who passed by, for instance. The young man whose conversation revealed that 'He needs to be careful, otherwise he will be 'done' for receiving and be sent down again'. How intriguing is it listening to other people's conversations!' But how frustrating when you only get half the story.
    Neither is Home Bargains in the best part of town, Not long ago, in the car park a young foreign gentleman' was trying to sell me a rather modern mobile phone for twenty pounds. I haven't got a mobile but manage quite well without one, thank you very much. Plus I bet you someone in the pub round the corner is wondering where he mislaid his phone!
    Interesting, the Home Bargain set up. A discount chain, founded by Tom Morris from Liverpool approximately forty years ago. It now consist of over four hundred shops, employing over 10,000 people, turning over a billion pounds a year.
    I think back to my Woolworth days. I worked for them from 1957 to 1959. At that time they had close to  one thousand shops but it had taken them many years to get to that size. Then in later years, bang and Woolworth's were no more. Wouldn't have happened if I'd stayed with them. (Only kidding!)
    I have many, many memories of those years. Crazy, mad years. An innocent abroad; a seventeen year old boy amidst many older, wiser, experienced women. I wince at the memories yet wryly smile. Memory of ' He 'ad me over the kitchen table before he 'ad his tea' springs to mind.' Lewd, rude, often crude yet 'ladies' whose presence was far more valuable to my education than my often boring years as a Grammar School schoolboy.
    Ruminating, (what a lovely word) I have realised, often that my mind, and presumably the minds of others have stored within, millions and millions of memories covering life from our early days.      I'm not a technical type; but I can just about appreciate that a computer stores information on what's called a hard drive and my mind is similar to the hard drive of a computer. The following information is NOT from my memory bank. Consequently I only HALF understand it all!
 Its all measured in bits (bytes?) Evidently there are around a 1000 terabytes (?). Around 1,000,000 gigabytes storage capacity. Someone else, far cleverer than me reckons the brain is capable of holding over a trillion gigabytes of memory. BUT whatever, its not an endless figure. Thats why, presumably unimportant stuff gets lost/deleted sometimes. All a long, long way from a visit to Home Bargains!
    MOST, not all of my brain is still working. Whilst that is the case, I will continue to trawl for long lost memories. It amuses me, I hope for you likewise. And a happy Christmas to you all! Its only just around the corner. At least to QVC that is the case. They have periodic offerings of Christmas goods and have done so since JUNE! They also have a compete day of Christmas advertising on the 25th of each month. Life is often mad but always interesting.

Now What Year was That

I have been consistently writing on the period 1945-59 for some considerable time. I have also lived for over 25,000 days. I can recall in some detail events from as far back as 1945. Not bad, except that it has dawned on me that my memories are mainly concerned with events rather than specific years. There are huge gaps concerning years, inevitable I suppose but alarming.

I remember in some detail VE Day (8th May 1945), and a teacher in class announcing that a good man called Gandhi had been murdered. (Jan 30th 1948) Coronation Day made an impression (June 2nd 1953). The day I arrived from school to be told that my mother had died will inevitably stay forever in my mind. (Tuesday September 8th 1953) On a damp February day in 1958 the sensational news came in that the plane carrying Manchester United footballers had crashed. I was working for Woolworths at the time. And how could I ever forget finishing under a lorry on Tuesday March 10th 1959.

I started teaching in 1974 and officially retired in 1990. Dare I admit I have been known to forget the exact date of my Wedding Day (April 4th 1970) and on occasion the exact year the children were born. ( July 30th 1971 and June 8th 1973) The days, weeks, months, years roll by, of no consequence outside our immediate friends and family. Unsurprising so but in a way sad. Probably the reason why so many strive to leave something behind for which they will be remembered. (Not the main gist of this particular blog but what are YOU going to leave behind, besides memories of course.)

Whilst I have recall of many events over the years I seem to be unable to place many other such occurrences in the exact year they were experienced. And as more years pass the more difficult recall becomes. For instance, I cannot recall a single event that belongs specifically to 1952, 1954, 1955 or 1957. More surprising, virtually the whole of the 1980's is shrouded in the mist and the 1990's are no better.

The only exception to my inability to recall years is 1985. For the only time in my life I kept a comprehensive diary. Two brief entries go a long way to showing why we can recall so little of our lives.

Wednesday 20th November 1985

Another of those frequent days where nothing happens but life is by no means unpleasant, an observation that many in this troubled world would love to make.

Thursday 21st November 1985

Paulette goes out for the evening with Kay. Alison retires to bed. Sarah, who has no lessons first thing in the morning, watches television with me. We watch a programme concerned with the topless young ladies who adorn page three of some of our national newspapers. We watch without embarrassment. I am quietly pleased at Sarah's maturity. Going fast is the child, appearing as the young adult. Of the programme itself, I am saddened by a mere fifteen year old seeking stardom, adulthood and heaven knows what else. How foolish to seek adulthood when it comes all too soon without our searching.

Two entries which confirm life for many of us, though enjoyable, has little of real substance. Understandable, but again the question, how can a year, never mind a day have no lasting impact.

Have you blank years, or even blank decades. A little test. Pick a decade, ideally way back in time. Recall as many as ten events, that you specifically relate to. Anniversaries are out and no looking up information. Or am I alone in losing it, god forbid!