In my blog way back in March last year I said that I had been blessed with a bad memory. There are large parts of my life that remain, for the majority of the time beyond the reach of my mind. No matter how hard I squeeze its dark recesses it just won’t let up its secrets, assuming that there is something actually in there. I don’t know why
Last night I was out with some old school friends and the inevitable subject came up of John Rutherford who, apparently, I used to get the train with to school, every morning and return with him every evening on the equivalent journey. But still I do not remember and still a part of me believed that he was made up. I can see him in my mind’s eye but only because I’ve pieced together an image of him from the bits of description I have gleaned from my colleagues, almost like a virtual photo-fit.
But last night they thought they had me banged to rights. An old school photograph had been found, showing the rugby first team. I was never good enough to be a player at such a level and so I was not in the picture but there in the back row was John. His hair was blonde and curly and long as everyone’s was in the early 70s. He was tall and looked just as I had imagined him to look if not a little younger and perhaps a little more effete.
Did the picture help? Not at all I’m afraid. Whilst I recognised him as a class-mate our joint travel arrangements remain a blur. Today I took matters in hand and flicked through my own photographic records and sure enough, there he was in an old class picture. But still nothing more than a flicker of recognition.
I need to go back to the drawing board as only by meeting up with him will my memory be restored but there are 44 million possible pages on Google and nothing on LinkedIn. It’s going to be a hard search unless anyone out there knows him.
p.s. While writing this I’ve just had a flash come into my mind of him standing by the doors of a Metro train but I know this cannot be true as I’d left school a whole two years before the Metro started running. Just shows how I cannot rely upon my bad memory.
Thoughts from a Guerrilla Worker 