Books can bring back some wonderful memories but it’s a lot harder to evoke smells from the past. Recently, I was helping an old lady clear her house for a move to a Rest Home when I opened a drawer and disturbed something. A whiff of camphor took me back almost 40 years and I remembered my Gran’s Sunday best coat, hanging inside the mahogany wardrobe, its pockets bulging with mothballs
Jeyes fluid always reminds me of my Auntie Betty’s outside loo. The smell of ink takes me back to primary school where I took my turn as ink monitor. A damp woodland reminded me of the little church next door to the school. We children filed into the cold high backed wooden pews for special occasions like Ascension Day (always a Thursday) and after singing a couple of hymns, we had the rest of the day off. Licorice brings back cold winter days outside the sweet shop where I pretended to smoke a licorice pipe and the smell of Vick still transports me back to the memories of a sticky chest and the ear ache which dogged my childhood. And hands up if you had a paraffin heater at home… remember the Esso Blue dealer?Watch movie online John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017)Watch movie online Logan (2017)
Of course, not every smell has pleasant memories. As a child the loo, a wooden seat over a bucket, was right down the bottom of the garden. Thank God that dash on a dark windy night or a wet afternoon is a thing of the past.
Smells can never be kept. One day they will be lost forever but every now and then, they make a surprise visit and thrill us with a blast from the past.
If you have some smelly memories, do share them
Pam