Memory 31 January 2008

' Memories can be polished, like objects taken out, burnished, and contemplated, or they can flitter just out of reach, like lost threads of broken webs.' AS Byatt: Memory: An Anthology '

The collection of extracts, poems and essays demonstrates the complexity of recall and the capacity of the brain to pull down those things which we haven't retrieved for many years.

A smell like creosote on a newly painted wooden fence always conjures up a summer's day for me when I was eight or nine and I can still see my street, baking in midsummer heat, flying ants everywhere, the sound of the raised voices of other children playing, the endless times of school holidays, when everyday feels like a month and every week a life time.

What is it about time when you are a child? It's possible to recall immensely detailed moments, the smells, the colours, the mood of a particular moment even though it is rarely visited.