On pondering the topic, lost and found, I soon realised that the thing I tend to lose most frequently at this stage of my life is time. And that the thing I am seeking to find with the most gusto is memories.
Those thoughts reminded me of two anecdotes.
The first one came at the end of the cricket season a few years ago.
Late season, I always try to take in a day of county cricket with my old friend, Charley “The Gent” Malloy. It helps us both to prepare for the inevitable winter withdrawal symptoms. The cricket season starts earlier and ends later each year, yet it seems to fly by faster than ever. Where do those months go?
In order to investigate this temporal phenomenon, which I shall paraphrase as ‘in search of lost time,’ I decided to add a large packet of madeleines to the picnic. I had bought that large pack earlier in the season but had not got around to using them. Those madeleines would expire before the next season. Besides, as any fool knows…
…or at least anyone with a vague knowledge of the writings of Marcel Proust…
…when in search of lost time, what you need more than anything else, is madeleines.
No sooner had the umpires called “tea”, than out came the madeleines.
And no sooner had the crumbs touched my palate, than a shudder ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses. Whence did it come? What did it mean? How could I seize and apprehend it?
And suddenly the memory revealed itself. The taste was that of the little piece of madeleine which on Sunday mornings nanny would hand me, after dressing me in my little sailor suit, when I went to say good morning to mama in her boudoir.
“Are you getting involuntary memory from these?” I asked.
“Yup,” said Charley. “I can recall the rare occasions in that grim North-Eastern mining town, when mum would put a tiny pile of cakes on the table and the whole family would fight like wildcats in the hope that a few crumbs might touch yer palate.”
Now Charley is Essex born and bred. He does have some County Durham ancestry way back, but I’m not sure he’d ever even been to County Durham until we went together to the Durham test match in 2013.
“Hmm”, I said. “I think we might both be getting false memory rather than involuntary recovered memory from this packet of madeleines. Must be the lack of lemon zest. Still, they’re surprisingly good for packaged cakes. I’ll have another.”
“Me too”, said Charley.
So we ate three or four each and Charley took the remainder home to share with his starving wife and bairns.
…
Now, not all that long afterwards, I experienced a real example of finding a lost memory as a result of eating food. The foodstuff wasn’t madeleines this second time; it was caviar. Janie decided to treat us to a small pot of Ossetra caviar to help celebrate New Year’s Eve.
And this time, the recovered memory was an extremely peculiar but absolutely genuine memory…
…about Hitler.
Now there is an internet adage known as Godwin’s Law, which states (I paraphrase) that any internet discussion will eventually descend into a Hitler comparison.
Surely Threadmash should be a Hitler-free, safe space; not subject to an immersive equivalent of Godwin’s Law? Normally, yes, but not today.
From my infancy all the way through my childhood in Streatham, we had a wonderful lady doctor, Dr Edwina Green. Edwina was a GP who went way beyond the call of duty.
For example, because I was…how should I put this?…more than a little fearful of my jabs as an infant, she came round to our house to dispense the vaccinations. On one famous occasion, when I was feeling particularly averse to being stabbed, Edwina indicated to mum that my rump might make a better target in the circumstances. I worked out the coded message and tried to bolt. The end result was a chase around the room and eventually a rather undignified bot shot delivered by Edwina under the dining room table. My mum oft-reminded me of this later in my life.
This extraordinary level of pastoral care and attentiveness went beyond zealously inoculating reluctant Harris miniatures – Edwina and her family were close friends with my immediate family, not least the ones who came “from the old country”. Uncle Manny, whose opinions were so robust and plentiful, that everyone in the family called him Pundit…and Grandma Anne – a traditional Jewish grandmother, who peppered her heavily-accented English with “bissel Yiddish”.
In the early 1970s, at Christmas-time, my parents would go to Edwina’s house for a seasonal party, along with many other local folk. Naturally, my parents plied Edwina and her family with gifts…many of Edwina’s other patients and guests most certainly did the same.
A strange tradition arose, in which Edwina reciprocated our present giving by handing down a generous gift she would always receive from a wealthy Iranian patient; an enormous pot, I think a pound, of Iranian Beluga caviar.
Edwina and family didn’t like the taste of caviar. Nor did my dad, as it happens. But mum loved it and I acquired a seasonal taste for it too.
Each year, mum and I would eat Beluga caviar on toast for breakfast for the first couple of weeks of the year.
Even back then caviar, especially Beluga caviar, was very expensive. Not equivalent to the “critically endangered, barely legal, hard to get hold of” price levels of today, but still very much a pricey, luxury item.
I remember mum warning me not to tell my friends at school that I was eating caviar on toast for breakfast, because they would surmise that I was a liar or that we were a rich family or (worst of all) both.
There was only one problem with this suburban community idyll; Don Knipe. Edwina’s husband.
Don liked his drink. Specifically Scotch whisky. More specifically, Teacher’s whisky. A bottle of Teacher’s always formed part of our family Christmas gift offering, that bottle forming but a tiny proportion of Don’s annual intake.
Don I recall always being described as “eccentric”, but, as the years went on, Don’s eccentricities gained focus with increasing unpleasantness. Don joined the National Front, at that time the most prominent far-right, overtly fascist party in the UK.
One year, when I was already in my teens, my parents returned early from Edwina and Don’s party. I learned that Don had acquired a large bust of Hitler, which was being proudly displayed as a centrepiece in the living room. My mother had protested to Don about the bust, asking him to remove it, but to no avail. Mum had taken matters into her own hands by rotating the bust by 180 degrees. When Don insisted on rotating Hitler’s bust back to its forward-facing position, mum and dad left the party in protest.
Mum told Don and Edwina that they remained welcome at our house but that she would not be visiting their house while Hitler remained on show.
One evening, a few weeks or months later, my parents had Edwina, Don and some other people around our house. The topic of Hitler and Nazi atrocities came up. Don started sounding off about the Holocaust not really having been as bad as people made out.
My father stood up and quietly told me to go upstairs to my bedroom. I scampered up the stairs but hovered on the landing out of view to get a sense of what was happening.
My father was a very gentle man. I only remember him being angry twice in my whole life; this was one of those occasions.
“You f***ing c***!”, I heard my dad exclaim.
I learned afterwards that my father, not a big man but a colossus beside the scrawny form of Don Knipe, had pinned Don to the wall and gone very red in the face while delivering his brace of expletives.
I heard the sound of a kerfuffle, a few more angry exchanges, ending with “get out of my house”. Then I heard Don and Edwina leave the house. Edwina was weeping, apologising and trying to explain that Don doesn’t know or mean what he says.
The story gets weirder. Edwina remained our family doctor, although social visits were now at an end. Don and Edwina remained extremely attentive to Uncle Manny’s branch of the family and Grandma Anne.
And the seasonal exchange of gifts remained sacrosanct.
For reasons I now find hard to fathom, I became the conduit for the seasonal gift exchange. Why my mother, who organised the errand, felt that I would be less defiled than my parents by visiting a household that displays a bust of Hitler, I have no idea.
Anyway, for several years I would go to Edwina and Don’s house to deliver our presents and collect the fishy swag. I didn’t go into the large living room which contained Hitler’s bust; I would usually be received in a smaller front drawing room.
As I got a bit older, Don would ask me to join him for a whisky and a cigarette; offers which I accepted.
I can’t recall what Don and I normally talked about; not politics. We probably just chatted vaguely about my family and the weather.
But I do recall what we talked about in 1981, my last visit in this ritual.
Uncle Manny had passed away suddenly and rather dramatically in May that year. Grandma Anne never really recovered from the shock of Uncle Manny’s demise and died in the autumn that same year.
By late December 1981 I had completed four terms at Keele; I was far more politically aware than I had been in earlier years.
Don greeted me at the front door, as usual, but this time said, “come through to the living room and have a whisky with me.”
“Not if Hitler is still in there,” I said.
“Oh don’t start all that”, blustered Don, who I think must have made a start on the whisky before I got to the house that morning. “I really want to chat to you about your late uncle and your grandma.” Don started to cry.
I relented and entered the forbidden chamber.
And there he was, in the sitting room, glaring in my direction.
Hitler.
The bust of Hitler, I mean. I said the story was genuine and strange, not deranged.
Hitler’s bust, resplendently positioned with Nazi flags and books about the Third Reich on display around it.
I accepted a generous slug of Teacher’s and a Rothmans; then I reluctantly sat down.
Don was crying. “I miss your Uncle Manny and your Grandma Anne so much”, he said, “you have no idea how fond of them I was. I love your family.”
I remember saying words to this effect, “Don, I understand that you sincerely love my family, but I cannot reconcile that love with Hitler, Nazi memorabilia, your membership of the National Front and you keeping company with those who hold such views. Those are antisemitic, out-and-out racist organisations and people. It makes no sense to me.”
“It’s not about Jewish people like your family. I love your family.”
“So what sort of people is it about?” I asked.
“Other people. You don’t understand”, said Don.
Don was right. I didn’t understand. I still don’t understand. It isn’t as if our family was so secular and Westernised. Uncle Manny and Grandma Anne were like Jewish stereotype characters from central casting.
I think I was polite in making my excuses and leaving fairly quickly. The visit certainly didn’t end in any acrimony or hostility. For sure I got the caviar. But I resolved not to run that errand again and (as far as I recall) didn’t ever visit that house again.
Strange. And I found that memory simply as a result of sampling a small pot of caviar with Janie.
Now, as an experiment this evening, I thought it would be fascinating for all of us here at Threadmash to see if we can find lost memories in this way.
So, at my own cost…
…with absolutely no expense spared…
…I have bought each of you a small pot…
[TURN PAGE IN SEARCH OF THE PUNCHLINE]
…I have bought each of you a small, pot-entially Proustian…
…madeleine.
[HAND OUT WRAPPED MADELEINES FROM BAG]
Postscript – Brief Review Of the Evening, Written The Morning After
We gathered excitedly at the Gladstone Arms for this second Threadmash. Ten of us with stories to tell and just a couple of people this time observing only.
As last time, Rohan was the arranger and compere for the evening. He stitched me up to go first – which explains why I was in a good position to photograph some of the group from the side during Rohan’s intro.
Eight of us were having a second go; two new people joined us in telling a story.
The stories tended to be darker and more visceral this time. Perhaps the topic, “Lost and Found” was asking for that. Two of the stories were about experiences with drugs and/or addiction. Two were about nearly losing a loved one, together with the intense emotions that arise from such events. One was about nearly losing a cherished artefact – in this case a violin; a personal story, interestingly, nevertheless, told in the third person.
Several of the pieces this time were experimental in their written style. One was in blank verse. Two were fabulist, in one case making it intriguingly hard to tell the extent to which it was based on personal experience. One story spanned over fifty years and ended with a fascinating revelation.
All of the stories and performances were very good indeed; delivered and received with great warmth.
To continue the thread for next time, Rohan brought a pile of single records, from which we each picked two at random, so we shall each have a different title next time and some element of choice from the records we picked.
One story teller, earlier in the evening, had said that we don’t always find stories to tell; sometimes a story finds us. I was pondering this fascinating idea, after parting company with the last of my companions, as I switched to the Central Line at Bank. There, on the train, as I sat down in the almost empty carriage, on the seat opposite me, a story found me:
It had been a wonderful evening.
As I write, the next morning, my head is full of all of those stories and the warm, friendly feeling that pervaded the evening. Strangely, I cannot find a single word to describe that feeling in English, whereas there is a suitably descriptive word for it in German: Gemütlichkeit.
Once again Rohan, many thanks for making Threadmash happen. Here’s to the next one.
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