I’ve already mentioned Popeye, the toy monkey that Grandma made for me, and now I’d like to introduce you to a couple of other toys that I’ve owned for a very long time.
Firstly, meet Hamrose, my pink elephant. This elephant is the same colour as ham and has roses on its ears. I think it was given to me by Grandnan, but it was a long time ago. Rebecca has another elephant in the same style - a blue one with daisies. (more…)
This is a follow-up to my earlier post about music, and is about the songs and tunes that I composed on the piano between approximately six and ten years of age.
The catchiest tune I wrote back then (from one of my earliest compositions) was probably this: 
I thought I’d write about the scars that my body has accumulated over the years, from various accidents and other incidents.
There’s one on my forehead, which I’m told derives from a temper tantrum when I was two. Apparently I hit it on the corner of a brick wall.
When I was a preschooler I fell off a bunk bed and needed stitches in my head, and you’d probably find a scar there if you shaved my head. I remember tiny fragments of this event, but not most of it. I remember feeling dazed, and more specifically, responding in a dazed way when asked which of two adults should trim the hair back.
The purpose of this post is to lay some foundations for a series about the role of music in my life, so that future posts can take up specific themes in more detail. See the Music category for all posts in this category. Also see the music page on my website. An earlier post on this blog contained some photographs of musical scenes from my childhood.
This post is about those relatives of mine who were close to me, and have died recently enough that I remember them. It so happens that all three are in the same branch of the family: my grandparents on Dad’s side, and Grandma’s father.
Here are scans of some pictures of me as a kid. As usual, click to enlarge.
The top left photograph shows me composing music on the piano. Music is still an important part of my recreational life; I haven’t mentioned it much on this blog yet, but it’s just a matter of time.
In the top centre is a ram’s skull on a post. It was the centrepiece of what us kids called our “witches’ garden”, amidst the orange trees.
Top right: Rebecca and me working at our desk. I believe the alphabet thing behind us (which had a pocket for each letter and an object made of felt for each pocket) was made by Auntie Sue.
The picture at the bottom left shows me reading to Rebecca one of our favourite stories: “The Enormous Crocodile” by Roald Dahl.
Finally, on the bottom right is a picture of me when I was very young sitting on Mum’s lap, playing the piano.
I still have a couple of my school exercise books from when I was around 9 years old, as well as some other writings from the same timeframe. For example, as I said earlier, the adventures of Antherus were an obsession for many years.
[Update: Other posts based on material found in my early exercise books can be found here and here.]
Antherus himself was drawn as a hovering upside-down tear-shaped figure with three bands of colour, and could, among other things, become more and less solid at will, easily slipping like a ghost through solid objects if he chose. I had no idea at the time that “Antherus” was also one spelling for the name of the nineteenth Pope. This is perfectly fair: the Pope has no idea that I wrote fiction, or indeed, that I exist.
I saw Mum today. I won’t go into the wherefores, but between events we had a pleasant time talking over a bakery lunch in the Wittunga Botanic Gardens.
Writing this blog, I’ve been reflecting a lot lately upon early childhood memories, and we talked about that. It’s interesting how different people remember different sorts of things - I have a very verbal memory (many of my earliest memories are snippets of conversation), whereas Mum’s memories tend to be visual. We also talked about how it can be hard to tell which memories are true, and which are cobbled together by the mind after the fact. But Mum confirmed that my earliest “this feels faintly like a memory but I couldn’t swear by it” recollections are, at least, plausible.
Here are some of my very earliest memories in reverse chronological order.
Today I’ve decided to write about games that my sister and I played as kids. None of these games were invented in any premeditated way, but somehow they evolved from our interaction, the rules generated out of thin air through mutual understanding and consensus.
Today’s photograph is of a bridge over the Forth and Clyde Canal in Glasgow.
I took the photograph when we visited Europe in 2000, but the reason for the photograph is that it’s the site of a notable incident in my childhood.
Back when I was five years old, we took a boat holiday on the canal, and during one moment where I got rather excitable (as kids that age are inclined to be), I accidentally knocked Dad’s glasses off his face and into the canal. I understand that he was not pleased.
If you know the story of Glasgow’s coat of arms, and believe in narrativium, then you might expect that Dad’s glasses were later miraculously recovered. Surprisingly, however, they weren’t, and presumably still lie buried in the mud beneath the water. Apparently it’s true that narrativium doesn’t exist on Roundworld.
