Wednesday 4 May 2016

Memory is what you make it

The local historian in me has long known that the past is created by what we choose to remember, be it about ourselves, other people or the order of things. An invitation on one of my favourite short story websites, shortfictionbreak.com, prompted me to write a story about memory, which I have added to my list in the right-hand column and called 'Murdo's memory'.

We do have the habit, as a society, of forgiving and not admitting the sins of the great and the good whilst never forgetting and readily exposing the sins of the poor and the frail. I am sure you do not need me to list examples of my observation; you can, I'm sure, quickly compile your own list.

As a child from about the age of four until I was fourteen I always shared by bedroom with a lodger, one of whom, a man who called himself 'Karl', sometimes 'Leo', got me to share his bed to keep us warm and for about three years sexually played with me and got me to do the same with him. It was 'our secret' and I kept it until I told my wife. Today we would call it 'sexual abuse' and there are many poor souls with similar experiences to me who are still traumatised by the experience.  I can make no such claim and responded by being determined that any children of mine would have their own bedrooms and so it was.

I also had a female cousin my own age who liked to share a bed with me on family holidays and we became openly close after leaving school, to the point where we were warned off one another and dutifully did what we were told. At best we were second cousins, maybe third. My maternal great-grandfather was the brother of my cousin's maternal grandfather. Neither of us worked out the link and when she died of breast cancer aged thirty-eight, she was convinced had we stayed together her first husband would not have been there to punch her breasts repeatedly when he got angry with her. I am in no doubt that she was right and I took some comfort from the fact that she and my wife were good friends.

I tell you these things because how I have chosen to remember my life has freed me from the pain and trauma I witness in others. I can do nothing about the past. Bitterness will never make me once a rich child from a stable loving home. I had the childhood I had and in the order of things it was not bad. My memories of it are mostly happy.

My grandparents, who brought me up, were of their time and a little distant, but I did feel protected and cared for. More hugs and kisses would have been nice and the lack of such affection probably explains why Caroline and me took mutual advantage of the opportunities we had. Leo/Karl depending on his mood was always kind and generous, but he exploited me none the less and what he did was wrong, very wrong, but I know enough about life to know that what happened to me was not uncommon in the 1950s.

My experiences and memories are the stuff of fiction and not a week passes without some author writing a successful novel based on childhood or matrimonial abuse. So it is with how we remember dead members of our armed forces. We make heroes out of them all and, in truth, I do not know what else we can do. The truth is something we bury with them and I can live with that. As for the living, we can call them to account and we should, but only if we do it regardless of class, gender, faith, race or wealth. I find it difficult to punish just the poor, the black, other minorities and those least able to defend themselves.

I have long been of the view that story telling is a more reflective and understanding way of dealing with injustice than prison and scaffolds.

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