Memories are made of this?

ARE memories really memories, are dreams actual or are they fits of nostalgia?

DÉJÀ VU delusions or something else…..Think on.

Some of my early recollections could actually have been reflections of real happenings, others might appear to have been illusory yet I cannot accept that they appeared out of nowhere. In fact, perhaps a non-existent form of nostalgia.

In ‘for instance’ terms, I recall somehow a singularly unusual trip to the Isle of Man, in the early 1940s. Travelling on a Manx ferry, my father with his relatively young family when I was probably six or seven years old was taking a holiday despite the threat of war. Everyone was celebrating because they thought there wasn’t going to be one! Little Tommy Tittlemouse – my dad – who was only 5 feet tall was playing dominoes (double nines) on deck with three other blokes and was winning when I was scooped up and shoved on to a bunk in a cabin. Pearl, my sister woke me up when we arrived in Douglas but dad was missing… he’d gone AWOL. Mum assumed that he had actually gone ahead to our boarding house digs. It transpired that he hadn’t. He’d had a few bevies and fallen asleep. They found him still on the boat when it docked back in Liverpool. I heard the story but dad said it wasn’t true. Some years later when I reminded him of the story, he laughed it off and said it was rubbish and dominoes didn’t have double nines anyway. Different folk dream up different fantasies.

So much for nostalgia! Tommy also missed the ‘Albino Show’ in Douglas featuring a group of silver haired, white eyed black people but there you go! When challenged he dismissed the spectacle as being a party of ‘made-up’ actors fooling about.

I later learned that there actually were double-nine dominoes games and the Albino Show actually was an exhibition, which did exist, but I never discovered the truth about dad’s double journey across the Irish Sea. What I could never understand is why I remembered such an excursion 80 years later.

Déjà vu is not a particularly unusual experience, but my retentive memory really does go back in time and in a number of obscure ways. I often have dreams that are repetitive and in full colour too but they are rarely linked to reality.

In fact at times when I am aroused by a dream, if I doze off again or even just close my eyes images return at the blink of an eyelid.

Even the war was exciting in parts if not nostalgic... I watched a Spitfire crash in flames near Newcastle on Tyne and saw an entire terrace of houses burn down after being bombed by a German Stuka. This was no dream or fantasy. Whilst on the way home from school when I was 12 years old I witnessed this horrific sight.

In basic terms, I was a tearaway, always in trouble. I played truant from school and forged my dad’s name on a release form in order to secure a job as a newspaper lad selling late editions on a street corner. On the devil-may-care side, ignoring dad’s advice I went potholing and rock climbing in the Peak District whenever I got an opportunity. Some of my very long-standing remembrances came courtesy of Billy Butlin who was involved with travelling funfairs. I still recollect these events vividly from a period circa 1945.

At that time travelling fair grounds with swings, slides, carousels, ghost trains, big dippers, hoop-la’s, strength contests and other supposedly entertaining attractions were popular.

In that period outside Chesterfield at Whittington Moor, Proctor’s Fair was in opposition to Butlins who opened up at the same time. When this rival appeared overnight, a battle erupted. Enterprising Butlins won hands down by distributing free tickets offering exciting ‘thrilling’ spine chilling rides. I was around 13 years old at the time but I still remember the competing clashes vividly. Free Ice-lollies, free sweets, humbugs and liquorice Pontefract cakes kept the kids happy and saw off Proctor!

I still have many other recollections of what today I would consider to be ‘nonevents’ like the thrill of black & white cowboy pictures, British comedy ‘flicks’ starring Will Hay and George Formby and even Gracie Fields. That Winston Churchill announced that: “We shall fight them on the beaches” etc. is something else but remember…. Memories are made of this…