I was tidying up a shelf behind the swing-down door of a display cabinet in my living-room earlier, and found an old telephone 'directory' in which my parents once listed names and numbers of family and friends. My! What a step back in time it was. It wouldn't look out of place in an episode of
POIROT, and I assume that my father procured it when he worked for the
G.P.O. back in the '60s, when we were living in our previous house. That's based on the name of a then-near neighbour and class-mate of mine being scored out by my mother, presumably because she assumed there would be no further use for his number after we flitted.
Seeing the names and telephone numbers from years ago of people we knew who are now dead, or flitted, or who just drifted out of our daily lives, was a bittersweet reminder of my teens. For instance, I worked in the warehouse of my local BOOTS The CHEMISTS between August 1975 and November '76, and the 'phone number of the store, plus the name of my boss, SAM GREENHALGH, were listed, which instantly cast my mind back to those days. Mr. G (as I and others called him) died quite a number of years back (in the 20th century I think), but I can yet see and hear him in my mind to this day. Great bloke.
Friends, relations, long-defunct businesses and familiar-but-vanished shops made the past come alive again, with such clarity that it seemed like only a few short weeks ago when they were all part of my day-to-day life, not the four or more decades it's actually been. I found myself suddenly remembering people I hadn't seen or thought of in more than 30-odd years, and wondering what became of them and whether they were still alive or not. I hadn't actually realised I'd seemingly forgotten them until being reminded of them on sight of their name.
Once again, it struck me that we never truly forget anything or anyone, we only 'forget' to remember, but the memories are still there, lurking in our subconscious minds. All that's required is the proper stimulus to fast-track them to the front of the queue. As I've said before in a few other posts, not thinking about something or somebody isn't the same as forgetting them, and it was good to revisit people and places from an earlier time in my life, even if it was only in my mind.
So tell me, faithful readers, has anything like this ever happened to you on finding an old directory, diary, or notebook, and was it a pleasant experience or did it make you feel unbearably sad? Feel entirely free to share your ruminating recollections with your fellow Crivs in the comments section.
