A recently published book by the Bristol author Andrew Miller is making waves in the world of literature. The Land in Winter is the (fictional) story of two couples, set in the bitterly cold winter of 1962/63. I really struggle with fiction, because obviously fiction isn’t real, but every so often I am able to set aside what I know to be true and drift off to a make believe world, especially if that make believe world inhabits a place I know. This book seems like it will do that.
I think the winter of 1962/63 represents my first childhood memory, which is to say my first actual memory of my life. I say ‘think’ because I am not sure whether it’s an actual memory or a couple of frayed black and white photos of me and my mum in the back garden of our house, alongside a snowman – it would probably be a snow-person in these ‘woke’ times (this is a joke, mind) – that she had constructed. He/she/him/her (this is ridiculous – ed) lasted almost into spring because that winter went on forever. Or so people tell me.
I have several boxes of old photographs which, very occasionally, I take a look at. They are in no particular order and never have been. There’s one of me on my first day going to senior school, which I do remember, and another of me at a much younger age, dressed in a kilt for a wedding. I remember that, too, because I cried my eyes out when I was told I had to wear it. There’s one from the late 1960s of my dad kicking a football around in a London park. At a guess, I wonder if I was with him, possibly at the other side of the camera, but I have no memory of it.
I am slightly jealous of people who have good memories of their childhood, going back to when they were very young, sometimes two and three years of age. I have nothing like that by way of memories. I have literally no recollection of even going to infants school, a few of Junior school (being beaten to a pulp by Derward Roberts* in a mismatched scrap in the playground, although I was doing pretty well until his first punch landed on my nose, after which I was a bloody mess) and not many more of senior school. When I look back, where I feel there should be memories it’s all a bit of a blur. Maybe this is why my numerous attempts at writing my memoirs has rather fallen down?
Maybe my brain has deleted memories because so many of them were unhappy. School was a trial from beginning to end, due to my undiagnosed ADHD, causing me great anxiety pretty well at all times. Do I really want to remember not understanding even basic arithmetic or my mum having to buy a slide rule and then having not the first idea what it was for and how to use it? Oh wait, I do remember not understanding basic arithmetic or knowing what a slide rule is and does because – full disclosure – nothing much has changed. A man with a bus pass unable to carry out even basic maths without a calculator. How on Earth did I get this far without being found out? I don’t remember the name of a single maths teacher. That must say something.
Holidays? Mum and me went to Rotterdam on numerous occasions, almost every summer school holiday. There are some very clear memories but the visits have blended into one. I recall going to West Bay with my mum and grandparents, possibly on several occasions, but maybe that’s not a blur and we only went once? Maybe I shouldn’t fret about this since everyone was did go with me is long dead and there’s no one left to ask? Anyway, if someone said, actually you did go to West Bay on, for the sake of argument, three occasions, what does it matter since I only recall one?
Perhaps this is a reason I have, except on one occasion, avoided school reunions? The last one, which I didn’t go to, attracted numerous people but only one I actually knew and I didn’t meet that person for the first time until something like 40 years after I left school. I may have imagined talking to someone I didn’t remember who was telling me of something that happened that I didn’t remember, either. Avoid the embarrassment and stay at home.
It’s music I remember, often where I was when I first heard a particular song. Sometimes, it’s relevant to what I was doing at the time, other times I can visualise myself, say, sitting in front of our little record player in the front room, asking mum to play the single of She Loves You by The Beatles, over and over again. I couldn’t operate the record player. I was six years old in … oh hang on … 1963. So, I don’t know whether the winter of 1962/63 is a memory or a memory of an old photo, but I do remember The Beatles? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And that is what my next book is about, or will be once I’ve turned dozens of individual essays into something vaguely linked and coherent; essentially my life memoir by music. I can’t remember enough about my life to write a meaningful and interesting memoir, but maybe the music, which continues to dominate my life to an alarming extent, could be the nearest I’ll get.
Music takes back to people and places that otherwise would remain deep in the recesses of my mind. And it has been a project that continues to bring me joy. I can’t say that the great winter of 1962/63 will play much of a part in the new book, unless I hear a song that takes me back to the garden, next to the only snowman I ever had. But as Bernie Taupin wrote, and Elton John sang, I know it’s not much but it’s the best I can do. Coming to Amazon some time in 2024.
* Derward died a few years ago. I lost contact with him pretty well after I left school but after our schoolyard scrap, we were the best of friends and I got to know him as a lovely lad.
