A215 - Life Writing - An Early Memory

We’re on to life writing, which is a pretty wide field I’ve realised. I’ve temporarily paused trying to write TMA4 and prep for the EMA to participate in A215’s 4th online tutorial. The task here is to write three short snapshots of memories and then try to link them together with a through-line. We’ve not to post the original pieces to the tutorial, but rather a consolidated draft. So I thought that this would give me three ready made blog articles, but on reflection I only want to post two of them. Here’s the first.

An Early Memory

[note: I can’t precisely date this, most probably it is 1976 or 1977, because I generally recall things well from when my brother was born in Feb 1979, however the winter of discontent was 1978-9 and was marked with many power cuts. I’m sure if I asked my mum she’d give me a better guess.]

It’s sometime in the late 1970s, I’m about six or seven. Sitting on the multi-coloured living room carpet, it has a pattern of squares with swirly bits on the inside of them. Each of the squares has a border wide enough for a hot wheels car to use as a lane. I’ve got a pile of lego on the carpet and I’m sitting near the window and the door to the verandah, the area near me is vivid but the rest of the room is lost in the darkness. Candles supplement the weak Scottish daylight which is obscured by clouds. Next to me washing hangs up drying, which is unusual as there is a drying room downstairs. My younger brother is asleep on the sofa and my Mum is helping me to build a house. I can see the thick green base tile and the red and white lego bricks forming into a house. In the dim Scottish winter night I can’t play for long before it is too dark to see.