What do we actually remember — the moment itself, or the story that has grown around it?
In this chapter, Andrew begins with a mysterious childhood “strickle”, a runaway reindeer and a possibly indignant encounter with a circus clown, before reflecting on the curious way memories change as they travel with us.
From forgotten voices on old tape recorders to the smells, songs and ordinary moments that suddenly carry us back in time, The Strickle is a gentle reflection on how memory shapes the stories of our lives — and how sometimes what matters most is not remembering exactly what happened, but remembering who was there with us.
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Hello and welcome. Each week I'll be sharing stories, stories that are drawn from real life, from people I've met and from moments I've witnessed. Sometimes they're remembered exactly as they were, and others, well, they're softened by the passage of time. But as always, they're brought to you with kindness and care, and all found in big skies and small ponds. Chapter 14: The Strickle. Now, even as I grew older and that old tape recording would be mentioned, it was always the strickle that was recalled. And to this day I have no idea what a strickle is. But the not knowing doesn't make the story any less or more memorable. Yet as I remember it now, I have no memory of being recorded, only of being reminded that it happened. And I guess that along the way that real-to-reel tape has completely disintegrated, and that was the only physical evidence that it ever happened, other than memory. So I'll let you in on a secret. When I decided to include this story, I told my mum, and her reaction well she just laughed because she remembered it too. So I guess it did happen. I'm not misremembering. I have another memory of a story, if not of the event, that same small boy in a Christmas show at primary school, who was supposed to run around the stage like one of Santa's reindeer, run around twice, I think, and then straight off stage. Although I seem to recall the story as me running around the stage three times. The third time minus all the other reindeer, but with laughter ringing out. I liked the sound of laughter, apparently. Well, some things never change. Preparing to write these stories, I've been thinking a lot lately about memory and how we remember things. Because I'm not entirely sure we remember events in the way we think we do. I have a feeling that I heard somewhere that what we actually remember in the act of remembering is the last time we remembered something. And so each time we go back, something shifts, something softens or sharpens, until what we're holding isn't quite the moment itself, but the version of it that's travelled with us. Here's another example from my own childhood. I can remember, or at least I think I can, a circus coming to the village, one of those small travelling ones, but big enough to be exciting and exotic enough to feel a little strange. And I have this memory of a clown coming up behind me and giving me a whack on the bottom, and everyone laughing, except me. I didn't like laughter that day apparently. Now I've carried that memory for years. It's always been there in a way as clear as anything, but every now and then I find myself wondering, did it really happen like that? Did it happen at all? Or is what I'm remembering just the last time I remembered it or a version of it or of something, with the laughter getting louder and my reaction becoming a little more certain each time. I should say I'm not frightened of clowns. This isn't one of those stories. It's just one I'm no longer entirely sure belongs to me in the way I thought it did. I suspect we all carry stories like that. On the subject of memory, there's something else I've been thinking about. The way it seems to be tied, not just to what happened, but to how it felt. Sometimes it isn't that a story comes back so much as what triggered the act of remembering a smell or a piece of music, or the way the air feels on a particular kind of day. You're not setting out to remember anything, and then suddenly you're there. Not in a clear, detailed way, not with a beginning and an end, just back in a moment, a feeling, a sense of being somewhere you once were. It could be the smell of polish on a wooden floor, or rain on a warm pavement, or that tune you haven't heard in years that find its way back to you without warning. And just for a few seconds, you're not remembering in the way you normally do. You're not telling yourself a story, you're simply, well, I don't know, sort of time travelling. And then there are moments we don't recognise at the time, the ones that feel entirely ordinary, a conversation, a visit, standing at a doorway saying goodbye in the same way you always do, with a quiet assumption that you'll see each other again. There's no weight to it, no sense of it being important. Just another moment passing, as moments do, and it it it's really only later, sometimes much later, that we come to understand it differently. That was the last time, the last conversation, the last time you heard that voice in quite that way. And once we know that, the memory changes, not because what happened was different, but because what it means has changed. Memories are a gift, but they're often wrapped in the most complex manner. Across the years I've seen memories bring people to tears and to laughter. I've seen the faces of people as they go on that journey of remembrance, family sitting together, thinking about someone they've lost, going back over those final meetings, sometimes wishing they'd known, sometimes wondering if they said enough or said the right thing. But more often than not, what they come back to isn't something dramatic at all. It's something ordinary. A cup of tea, a shared laugh, a conversation that wandered from one thing to another and doesn't seem to matter at the time. And perhaps that's the point. Perhaps it's a kindness that we don't always know when a moment is the last of its kind. Because if we did, we might try too hard, we might weigh it down with meaning or words that don't quite belong. Instead of allowing ourselves simply to be there, to live it, unaware of what it will become. And maybe memory in its own gentle way does the rest. Taking those moments, ordinary as they may have seemed, and later giving them the meaning we need when we need it. Yes, I guess most of the time it is, and I feel lucky that I see that all the time. The families that used to sit with me remembering someone they loved. Not as they were in a single moment, but as they've come to understand them over time. A story told one way at first, then another, then softened or deepened until what remains isn't just what happened, but what it came to mean. And perhaps that's not a failing. Perhaps that is what memory does with its quiet work, helps us carry people forward in a way we can live with. So if your memories don't feel quite the same as once they did, if they've shifted or changed shape over time, it may not be that you're losing them. It may be that they're simply, well, being remembered differently. Maybe that's the purpose of a strickle. Who knows. I'm going to be stepping away from the microphone now until uh next we meet. Um, you know what to do if you want to make sure you don't miss any of these quiet little podcasts of mine. Hit the subscribe button if you like, and then that way I'll pop up in your podcast feed without any effort at all in the future. I'll be back next week with more stories at this quiet corner of the podcast universe. Until then, you stay safe, and please enjoy living and telling your own stories.
