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Thinks: to save money on postage and to let friends and family have some idea of what I'm doing in England I'll start a blog. In the process of setting up the account I needed a name. Oh, what the hell: Thrupnybits. (I know, I know, stop sniggering behind your hand there) And a name for the blog? Mmm . . . how pretentious can I be? I don't think I'd browsed many blogs at this time I just jumped in. I can't remember now if I made a list to choose from. Mmmm . . . seeking something . . . how about epistēmē? Mmm . . . how can I have lived through so many years and still not answered the question "who am I?" or kept in mind the adage to 'know thyself'? Should I throw away all the books and start again? Pestered again and again with the question, “What do you want to be (or was it 'do'?) when you grow up?” I have the fuel (fertile? or mere wind-egg?); do I have the fire that consumes?
I can only know of my early life from what I have been told and the few pictures of me. I have no memory of that time; I do not have a memory of my sitting looking at the camera, only the memory that I was told this is a picture of me with Mr. Foster. My earliest memories, which are remembered as me being the centre of my universe, occur later as consciousness awakens. I do not have an eidetic memory. What about olfactory or auricular memory? The sense of smell, though the weakest of human senses, holds the key to many early memories: the smell of the kitchen on wash day; mum’s eau-de-cologne; the orangey-whisky-evergreen smell of Christmas at home; to this day I do not like the smell of gin as I took a swig of the stuff from a bottle I thought contained soda water, ugh! Sounds from childhood include the early morning crowing of cocks; the whining hum of the milk float; the swish of cars passing down the High Street; birdsong, particularly summer skylarks and evening blackbirds and thrushes warning ‘tchick’. So, of the first two years or so of my life I have no memory and therefore no knowledge but what I was told. I don’t know what my first words were; I never asked and wasn’t told. Boys are well known for staying mum until they are about three and then spouting complete sentences . . . does that mean by inference I think girls start off babbling and then never stop? I see pictures of me when little and I think I often look slightly puzzled viz:
I can only know of my early life from what I have been told and the few pictures of me. I have no memory of that time; I do not have a memory of my sitting looking at the camera, only the memory that I was told this is a picture of me with Mr. Foster. My earliest memories, which are remembered as me being the centre of my universe, occur later as consciousness awakens. I do not have an eidetic memory. What about olfactory or auricular memory? The sense of smell, though the weakest of human senses, holds the key to many early memories: the smell of the kitchen on wash day; mum’s eau-de-cologne; the orangey-whisky-evergreen smell of Christmas at home; to this day I do not like the smell of gin as I took a swig of the stuff from a bottle I thought contained soda water, ugh! Sounds from childhood include the early morning crowing of cocks; the whining hum of the milk float; the swish of cars passing down the High Street; birdsong, particularly summer skylarks and evening blackbirds and thrushes warning ‘tchick’. So, of the first two years or so of my life I have no memory and therefore no knowledge but what I was told. I don’t know what my first words were; I never asked and wasn’t told. Boys are well known for staying mum until they are about three and then spouting complete sentences . . . does that mean by inference I think girls start off babbling and then never stop? I see pictures of me when little and I think I often look slightly puzzled viz:
2+ years old with Mr. Foster, our next-door neighbour, in Kelvedon, 1953.
