On the Radio 4 this morning I heard the results from the what is claimed to be the biggest memory survey ever. They got ten thousand people to reveal their earliest memories, self defining memories and public event memories (I remember where I was when Kennedy died for example). There was lots in this stuff but it was ‘self defining’ memories I found most interesting.
These are recollections that are incredibly vivid and have had a profound effect on your life – the course it’s taken and how you’ve lived it. One person mentioned the shame at getting told off in junior school making them really bad at taking criticism, while, another embraced their half Swedish heritage for the first time thanks to the peace they found on a mountain near Stockholm. Unsurprisingly, it’s the senses that bring these memories crashing back into the consciousness, and they will dramatically affect what we’re doing at the time.
Songs bring back things for me, which is why I think this Nokia campaign is so powerful.
NORTHERN PLANNER 
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