Mining the Memory

Plunging back into the mists of time I tried to capture my earliest memory. Ghosts of remembrance flit across my mind’s eye as I try to pin down the earliest one. I’m two or three years old and we’re living with my Grandparents at the Army Barracks in Kildare, Ireland whilst Dad was posted for eleven months to Christmas Island to play with Atomic Bombs.

Anyhow, I remember back then Uncle Liam had a black Austin car. It had red leather seats which smelt great, and a wooden dashboard. I would sit in the front seat and I was so low down I couldn’t see out of the windscreen, except to see the sky. As we would drive to the big gates of the Barracks there was a pot hole that we would have to drive over that always let me know we were going out of the gates. I thought I was so clever to be able to tell when we were approaching the gates and Uncle Liam would deliberately drive over the pot hole so I could get to big note myself.

Whenever I sit in a car with leather seats (even if they’re not red), I’m immediately thrown back to that time. This is my favourite photo of myself, taken around that time. I’ve always loved this picture and the memories of those days that are evoked by it.