New Look

Today

Yesterday Paul heaved out his old camcorder - the one with tapes - and hooked it up to the telly to play old videos. With horror I watched the videos of me in Ireland 2002. Not only was I very large, I didn't seem to be taking any trouble. I wore awful jumpers and my hair, as often as not, looked as though I hadn't used a brush on it for a fortnight. My face looked raddled and old and fat. My view of things wasn't helped by the (intentional) emphasis on just how much and how often I was filling my face.

Now, I have generally regarded myself as one who does take trouble, so this video was a shock to my perception of myself.

I was talking to someone at last week's christening whose special area of study is how the digital age changes perception and changes memory. "Do you think", I asked "that photography radically changed how our memories are shaped?" "Most certainly." replied my companion.

In My Day

Mamma, as I have said many times, was German. She became fully naturalised after the end of the war and always regarded England as her home. She had little patience for immigrant Germans who wanted to join ex-pat groups of one kind or another. This wasn't so surprising; England had accepted her without comment at a time when her people were being slaughtered by Hitler.

One of the first things she did was to perfect her English. She spoke language idiomatically and fluently and many people told her that they wouldn't have guessed that she was German. She kept a diary, written in English, and said that she dreamt in English. Although she always had a little trouble with "th" and "s" in conjuction - according to her we lived in "souse east" London and Elizabeth always came out "Elizabez".

She died in 1981, before the advent of camcorders, so I was delighted when I happened upon an audio tape recorded by Paul on the event of Mamma's 63rd birthday. I listened with great amusement to four-year old Lizzie's appalling Sussex accent and to the general chit-chat. "Who", I said to Paul, "is that German woman whose voice I keep hearing?" "Why, Mamma", He said. "Did she always have that very strong accent?" I asked. "Certainly."

I was very shocked; my entire perception of my mother, not just in childhood, but in my life to that point was being overturned. And now, how do I remember Mamma's voice speaking to me? The truth is, I just don't know any more.

It's not just what we see, but what we hear, that changes our memories and I fear that, unless we totally cut ourselves off, there's nothing we can do about it.