No, Epimetheus, hiding behind some Cecilian mantra doesn’t disguise the fact that you are simply being anal about this. I came into this discussion with a friendly “hey, here’s my experience on the matter”, and suddenly you’re here raving on about my “agenda”, my “claims”, and “checking at City Hall”. That looks like taking a bizarrely personal approach from where I’m sitting. Ferkrissakes man, I was FOUR YEARS OLD. Agenda? If I had no memories <5 then I’d say so, but I’m not going to deny what I know to be true just to satisfy you. I’m sure you are right that my memories might not exactly match the building plans lodged with the municipality. Sheesh. Yes, if I were to go back there today, it would probably seem much smaller, as typically happens with childhood haunts. There would no doubt be a plethora of stuff I’ve gotten wrong, or have grossly built upon over the years, but the basic concept of having many, many early childhood memories is one I stand by. I have no reason to lie to you - you ain’t important enough.
If you can just relax, lay off the espresso, and listen to what I’m saying without nitpicking it to all heck, I have thousands of memories of that house and of other places which are clearly deliniated by the October '74 date we left the city (btw, in a truck called “Big Red” which I was allowed to play inside briefly before it was loaded). Riding my tricycle to kindergarten, going to pick up my sister at “big school” and marvelling at the tree roots breaking the bitumen in the playground, looking at the stripe on my child’s bus ticket and wishing it was an ‘X’ like on my mum’s coz I thought that was cool, playing at the local playground which had an elephant shaped climbing frame, a giraffe shaped one, and an aeroplane shaped one, as well as the usual swings etc. It was next to a lawn bowls club. Going into the city on the train with my mother and knowing we “had to go to platform 3”, then running along the platform to be able to ride in one of the new double deck cars, coming home and getting off at our station and walking, or catching an express and getting off at another station then getting a taxi. I remember wondering how the taxi radio worked as there was no cable being paid out along the road. My dad not owning a car and borrowing an orange one from a friend called “Aunty Dot”, then hiring a silver car, getting it stuck in a carpark because it was so big, and then showing me how he could “drive” down the hill with the engine off. Going to my aunty’s house and meeting my cousins whom I thought strange because they ate their breakfast cereal dry. My dad’s yacht photos on the wall. Standing on top of a 1950s wooden “radiogram” to play with a yo-yo, because the string was too long for me to stand on the floor and do it.
How much more do you need? I can keep going all day. Remember I have a clear cut-off date for these things. After this date, we lived eighty miles away. Or are you going to come out and nitpick that I don’t remember what colour the yo-yo was, or simply straight out say that I am lying (for some obscure reason)?