fragile memory ·
14 August 04

I woke up slightly frightened. A few days ago I had thought about some things, in particular how little I would have to say to someone who asked about my past.

“I don’t recall much about my childhood. In fact, I’m fucked if I can remember yesterday” I would reply.

Then this morning, I had woken up, and the word “wow” came from my mouth. I had just relived fragments of my childhood. The dream was strange, as I imagined I had returned to the town where I spent 10 years of my life, most of it was my childhood.

I visited the old house I lived in, the old primary school I went to. I remembered all the places that frightened me, all the places that seemed so big as a child. There was a factory at the top of Boland Street, where my Great Aunt and her family lived. If you went towards the factory, you could see all these oil drums. I don’t remembered what the factory was manufacturing or processing, I just remember that it seemed desolate and creepy to me as a child. I always avoided that factory as scared the living shit out of me.

In the dream I had my camera, and I tried to capture all the places that stuck in my mind. I took the pictures in black and white. I don’t personally like pictures in colour, there’s something more truthful about seeing something in black and white. You remove all the distractions of colour and focus on the detail, on the picture. Even the little details become obvious and important, and add to make the picture greater than it perhaps was with colour.

I stuck two fingers in an offensive gesture at him, and being 5 years old I stuck my tongue through the V-shaped fingers to emphasise my disregard for his threats.

As I walked past the factory as an adult, as I am now, I moved into the corner street which was long as the factory, but wasn’t part of Boland Street. I crossed the road, and climbed the hill to John’s Cut Price. It was a small shop I visited very frequently where I bought Made in China toys for £1 a pop. They were either figures, or cars, or small throwaway things that I ended up breaking in a matter of hours after I was bored with them. I remember seeing the Star Wars figures, and realised that had I bought during that time, they may have been worth quite a lot now.

I took a picture of the shop. The shop itself was blue in colour and had a pub like sign hanging on one side of the wall which swung in the wind. The sign was blue in colour also, with the writing “John’s Cut Price” written in white Arial-like font. I don’t even know if Arial existed then, I wouldn’t know because I was 5 or 6 years of age at the time. Whenever I bought something from John’s Cut Price, I always wondered who was serving me.

I wanted to know who John was, and I always tried to understand whether John’s Cut Price was actually a sentence, or some guy called John trying to sell an item called Cut Price. The whole thing didn’t sit easily with me, and those words haunted me for a couple of years as I tried to understand whether it was grammatically correct. I would change the John’s Cut Price to Tim’s Cut Price to see if it made any difference, but it still sounded wrong.
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When my father visited me one one day, out of the two visits (so I was told) a year he had, he gave a toy. It was a huge robot, that turned into a gun and had a little robot that attached on to the big robot to work as a scope. The gun used a light to flash inside the torso part when a cap was fired, and I remember I could smell the musky smoke as I pulled the trigger.

My mother looked at me in disgust, so as to say, “You’re not my son if you accept his gifts”. I pleaded with her to let me have it, and she just kept saying no. She said I could live with him if I wanted toys from him. I remember crying quietly outside in the garden on my own. My Aunt, the daughter of my Great Aunt, who was about 7 or 8 years older than me came out to the garden and she asked why I was crying. I told her that my mother was being horrible about the toys, and that it should be ok to accept gifts from my dad.

A few weeks later, my mother gave me that same toy as a gift. I asked her where she got it from, and she said she bought it from the shop. I told her she was lying, and that she got it from my dad, and it was unfair that she made me feel so guilty, only to hand off his gifts as her own. I was angry, but I accepted the gift, I was 6 years old of course, and how many kids say no? Then one day we went to John’s Cut Price, and I saw that same toy there. I then wondered if it was possible that my father got the toy from Scotland (where he lived & was born, as I was) and whether my mother got hers from John’s Cut Price.

I don’t remembered what the factory was manufacturing or processing, I just remember that it seemed desolate and creepy to me as a child. I always avoided that factory as scared the living shit out of me.

I was confused as hell, and I wondered how many of these John sold. I always wanted to know who the hell John was, as there were so many different faces. I never thought the Indian guy could be John. The only way he could be John was if he was in an Indian movie, now called Bollywood movie, where they adopted names like John, Anthony and such as and when they felt like it, implausible as it was.

I struggled with the dream as fragments began to distort and twist, and I started to mix imagination with reality. I went to Daisyfield Primary school, and it was made most of bricks covered in layers of wood. It was a strange cottage like building, as though several cottages were put together and made in to one big cottage with different entrances and exits by knocking through walls. I can’t remember the inside of the school much, it’s truly fragmented in my mind.

What happened in my dream was rather surreal. As I walked around the corner of Pine Street, where I used to live at one point, I crossed the road and turned back to find Daisyfield Primary School. Except it was no longer the Daisyfield I knew. It was a huge fortress like school built completely out of red bricks and tiles. The school was surrounded by a huge metal security fence with those pointy ends at the top. It had turned into an all girls school it seemed, with the girls wearing a blue uniform consisting of blue jumpers, black socks or stockings, or whatever they call them, and gray skirts. They ignored me, and I ignored them.
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To be honest, I felt as though I was living in a different space in time. I tried to take a picture of the school, but the traffic kept getting in the way. I tried to find the original Daisyfield, but to no avail. I couldn’t remember how to get there. All the roads were confusing, and none of it made sense. I couldn’t find the bridge, I couldn’t find the spiraling pavement, or the shop that I would go past to get my chewing gum and fizzy cola bottle sweets.

This wasn’t working, so I decided to move on. I crossed the road again, and ended up at the other side of the Pine Street. If I walked to the right, I went down another road, and then taking a left was an abandoned petrol station. Abandoned? I don’t remember. Actually it was just a small petrol station with two pumps and a few cars passing through I think. It was no bigger than a children’s playground I think. My memory of it remained because that was one of my most frightening moments of my childhood. Everytime I saw it, reminded me of that time.

Coming home from school, with my heavy duffel coat weighing me down, it was raining. As I walked past the petrol station I saw the boy Jamie. Everyone knew Jamie as a bully, a complete and utter bastard. On this particular day, he saw me more than I saw him. He was walking his bastard dog, as we walked past each other he shouted “paki”. When I was young, I was taught about racism and what people may say. I knew “paki” was one such word. I turned around and shouted, “honky”.

I told her that my mother was being horrible about the toys, and that it should be ok to accept gifts from my dad.

Honky was a term thrown at white people, it was considered derogatory, but at the time I had no clue what it meant, expect that it pissed white people off. He turned and barked orders at his dog. I almost crapped my pants as the dog cut of my walking point, I tried to run across the other side, but Jamie shouted at the dog to stop me. I ran back, weaving in and out of the cars that were parked. Jamie was about 10 or 11 years older than me. I knew he was quite old and that he was quite the racist, as were his parents. Racism was prevelant in my childhood. The dog was as high as my waist, but it was a bit slow I think. I ran towards the petrol station, and Jamie shouted at the dog, “Kill him. Kill the paki” I wanted to cry, I wanted to go home, but if I stopped running that dog would have fucked me up so I kept running. I was getting out of breath and I was running out of petrol station to run around.

Jamie was laughing, and as I looked at him, I shouted “Fucking honky bastard. I’m going to kill your mum you bitch. I’ll make her eat my toilet.” Jamie’s face went ballistic, and he decided to come for me himself. An old white woman intervened, and shouted at Jamie. He told her to get lost, and she made him aware she knew his mother. He didn’t care though, she told me to go home and not to hang around with Jamie. I just said thank, instead of correcting her on my presence with Jamie. As I walked away, I saw the old lady having a few word with Jamie, which he didn’t seem to like. He saw me looking back, and shouted, “I’ll get you!”, I stuck two fingers in an offensive gesture at him, and being 5 years old I stuck my tongue through the V-shaped fingers to emphasise my disregard for his threats. Still when I got home I was relieved, scared and that moment has stuck with me all my life. It was something I never wanted to remember, to be that frightened again.

I always wanted to know who the hell John was, as there were so many different faces. I never thought the Indian guy could be John.

On one street, there were these strange shaped houses. It was like a house built on an existing bungalow. The front was a small sized garden with a huge wall. You would have to climb the steps, walk a few feet before reaching the front door. Along one side was a banister of sorts, it was small, so we could easily fall over it. I say we, because my friends and I would climb the steps of one particular house and jump off the bannister’s to the pavement below. It was no more than 1 metre to 1.5 metres in height. We were 6 or 7 years old, quite healthy and quite flexible.

After a lot of jumping our legs would hurt like crazy. Sometimes we fell awkwardly, and didn’t jump for a few days. If anyone saw anyone jumping alone, someone else would join in. Sometimes it would become a race to see who could do the most jumps before tiring out. I was pretty good at it. But this girl was better, I think she was the best, and none of the guys could beat her. I was pretty close though, and gave her a run for her money. In my dream I decided to take a picture of that corner, but I had to cross the road to do so. I took a picture, even with the interfering traffic.

I can’t remember how my dream ended, but the dream seemed to be a message to say that I did still have my memories of my past, that if someone did ask, I would have something to say. There’s more I want to remember, but it’s all so disjointed and convoluted that I just can’t make head nor tails of what is what. For now, I think this is enough to deal with, I don’t know if I can handle anymore past memories right now.