At one stage I was beginning my oral history interviews with what you might think is a fairly simple question.

“What’s your earliest memory?”

The idea was that this sort of open-ended question might act as a sort of portal to the past; a way to get my subject talking and kick-start their brain into thinking about their life and memories. It didn’t always have the desired effect, though; after a few such openings I discovered a tendency to take my question literally and try to work out which, of a thousand early memories, might be the actual earliest one. The interviewee spent so much brain power trying to choose which story to tell me that we were never able to dig beyond the superficial. We never quite achieved the ‘flow’ that might reveal the thoughts and memories that hid underneath.

In later interviews I ended up changing the wording to a more general ‘tell me about your early life’ sort of question, and that more often than not had the desired effect (I think the record was Arthur Atkins, a Lancaster pilot who started talking and didn’t stop for nearly two hours). But during the time I was asking other people about their earliest memories, I couldn’t help but try to answer the question myself.

So what is my own earliest memory?

Well, it’s very clear in my mind. I’m about four years old, and with my Dad, I’m standing next to some train tracks just outside Bowral in New South Wales. I hear the whistle of a train, and then it bursts out of the tunnel, pulled by not one, but two green steam locomotives: one is the famous Flying Scotsman and the other, the big streamlined NSW passenger engine known as 3801. For a young boy, the smoke, steam, speed and sounds are absolutely thrilling. I’m particularly amazed to see that the wheels of 3801 are taller than I am!  

This story has always been at the heart of who I am. Green remains my favourite colour and I still have a soft spot for 3801. The story gets trotted out every so often and I tell it easily and fluently.

There’s just one problem:

That’s not how it actually happened.

My long-cherished memory is wrong.

I only realised this in the last couple of weeks, when I received a package of old photographs from my parents. In amongst the collection was one particular photo. It shows me, it shows my Dad, and it shows 3801 hauling a train. So far, so good.

But where is Flying Scotsman?

Yes, the British locomotive was out in Australia in 1988, on a tour for Australia’s Bicentenary. Yes, in 1988 I was four years old. But despite the image that is still in my mind, I did not see it go past that day. My memory is incorrect. (Oh, I’d always thought it was just me and my Dad who were there, but the photo clearly shows my two sisters as well, and I imagine the photo was taken by my mother.)

What happened here?

In the photo, 3801 carries a headboard that says ‘Bicentennial Train’. The back of the photo carries a caption in my dad’s handwriting, saying the photo was taken in December 1988. Now knowing something about the Flying Scotsman tour, I suspect that the train was probably on its way to Moss Vale, not far to the south of where the photo was taken, to meet up with Flying Scotsman and then run together, in parallel, back up to Sydney.

I might have been too young to properly comprehend that. But there’s another photo in an old album that might hold an explanation; it was sent to me by my grandfather (a lifelong train enthusiast), who lived in the Blue Mountains. It shows Flying Scotsman, in a double-header with 3801, on tracks close to Grandpa’s house. Yep, both locomotives. I was not there.

I think I’ve simply conflated my own memories of seeing a train going past with that photo from Grandpa, and put Flying Scotsman in my mind somewhere it never was. And once the false memory was seeded, by telling the story I’ve reinforced it. If you tell yourself something is true often enough, eventually you’ll believe it.

But it’s still a foundational memory for me. I remember the thundering noise, the smell of the oil, the sound of the whistle and the shaking of the ground. I remember the excitement as this big, green monster went past, and it inspired a lifelong love of steam trains – especially big green ones. That is all true. The important bits of what was it like remain intact in my memory, even if I don’t have all the details spot-on correct.

Human memory is an unreliable source. Oral histories probably aren’t very useful for exact details of the what and the when. But goodness, can they paint a picture of what it was like to be there.

Just make sure you check the records before relying on the details.

Oh, and those train wheels? Many years later Dad and I went on a heritage trip on 3801.

They’re still taller than me.

© 2024 Adam Purcell