Whodunnit?

A certain smell, a specific taste, a distinctive sound, the touch of a material;

These all act as triggers to open up the vast bank of memories buried in the human brain hard drive.

To me the distinctive odour of Dettol brings back instantly the recollections of junior school and in particular the wooden recorder musical instruments. These were dipped in the opaque solution of antiseptic after each session in an attempt to kill off the germs from multi-child use. I did suffer from travel sickness when young. This may have been due to the very plasticky interiors of the cars of the 1970's, being squashed on the back seat amongst my four brothers and sisters or as a natural consequence of always scoffing down my sweets and goodies straight away rather than rationing them through the journey.

Various "old wives" remedies and quack practices were tried to combat the otherwise surefire event of my vomiting in a confined space or over my fellow passengers. The favourite, obviously on a low cost option was for me to be sat on a broadsheet newspaper from the onset of a road trip. Whether this actually worked through some freakish alignment of body energy or just psychologically was questionable but either way I ended up with newsprint blackened trousers and ink stained sweat-reddened back of the legs.

The specific taste I soon came to associate with being in the car was that of the medecine I was then required to take to counter nausea and illness. It was disgusting and I invariably threw up within a few minutes of taking it, regardless or not if we had actually started on a trip.

A very distinctive sound that I recall from childhood but came to dread was the "breep-breep" tone of the slimline home telephone. The land line phone was quite futuristic in the 1970's, a cheese wedge shape with lightweight handset and with our version being in a sort of avocado green. Although often announcing something pretty mundane the ring tone could also announce sad news and I clearly remember the anguish and emotional upheaval in the voices of my parents upon hearing about the death of close family and relatives. Although actually a rare occurence any hint of mortality impacted a lot on my young mind. Even now I have a sense of great trepidation when the phone rings. It is a relief, frankly if the voice on the other end of the line is an automated message about PPI or a distant and exotic accent from an overseas call centre.

Touch is also an evocative sense to me. This may be that from a favourite toy, a familiar shape or a textured surface such as my old cuddly blanket. That particular item of fabric survived well into my 20's ending up as a small fragment that I used to clean my bike,

So far I have attributed a trigger effect to four of the human senses.

The fifth, although in no particular order is of course sight.

I may upset quite a few people by saying that an abiding memory is that of feeling very poorly upon any sight whatsoever of the great British actress, Margaret Rutherford.

She is, I acknowledge a national treasure through her cinematic and stage performances but in her role as the amateur sleuth, Miss Marple-a creation of murder mystery writer Agatha Christie I am immediately reminded of faking sickness in order to skive off school.

I was a nervy child and any, even minor incident or upset in school time would start off a phantom stomach ache, imaginary head fever or trumped up dramatic reaction giving the impression that I was close to death. I found that very rapid breathing over, say, five minutes could invoke a dizziness and state of near collapse and that was quite a useful method to arouse concern amongst the teaching staff resulting in a phone call my parents for me to be collected or a ride home in a staff members car.

Margaret Rutherford was always on the television in a black and white film when I was comfortably reclined under an eiderdown in the living room in familiar surroundings. Although ecstatically happy to be at home and before my siblings got back from their schooling the whole process of twagging off did come at a price to my physical and mental state.

Even though some four decades ago I cannot now watch any movies from Margaret Rutherford's illustrious and long serving career which is a massive disservice to the great old lady.

Perhaps one day I might feel able to enjoy such classic films as Murder Most Foul, Blithe Spirit and The Importance of Being Earnest without those otherwise, in the day, useful side effects.