Only photographs have true photographic memory. The mind and eye play around too much with any information that comes their way so the photographic memory - or eidetic imagery as it is more properly known - of individuals is as unreliable as any mockumentary or post hoc dramatisation.


On the morning of Monday, 23 January 1961, our mother made sure we were all nicely dressed. Dad drove us into the town centre of Blenheim, a smallish regional town in New Zealand. We had an appointment at Kay's Studio on The Strand, and had at least eight family photographs taken. Mum, dad and Rachel are sitting on a chaise longue, Derek is perched on the back of it. Greg, at only fourteen months, is in our mother's lap and I am standing between my father's and Rachel's knees. When the proofs were sent to us, mum and dad chose their favourite and had several copies made. Relatives all over the world were sent copies.

On the afternoon of Friday, 21 April 2006, we made sure mum and dad were nicely dressed. Greg and I drove the family, in two cars, to a patch of parkland near Narrabeen Lakes, where we were to rendezvous with a photographer hired by Regan. We had a couple of dozen photographs taken of us. In one of them mum and dad, both now 84, are sitting in folding chairs, Derek and Rachel are leaning against the back of dad's chair, Greg and I are crouching at the front. It is a reconstruction of the other photograph taken 45 years, two months and 29 days earlier.

16,523 days, if my calculations are to be trusted. Or 13 x 31 x 41 days. Or 533 months. I wonder how many groups of people can claim to a relationship this long? But enough of the arithmetic.

My main motive in organising this reconstruction was to create an aide memoir for mum. I now realise that dad needs one too. I thought that if mum could easily link two images, one showing the family she remembers (c. 1961) and the other showing the family she has (c. 2006) she would be able to make the connection. These days she knows she knows us, she just doesn't know who we really are. It also became clear during Derek's visit this year that dad remembers him as a boy, but really struggled to connect this memory with the visitor. Above all, I hoped that mum would see dad in both photographs and remember that this was the man she married, that she would connect the man who hangs around her house now with the man she was prepared to follow around the world then. I hoped to put a temporary stop to mum's attempts to kick dad out - because this problem is causing more stress to them than anything else.

I worry that this has come too late. Mum's reaction to our use of photographs to try to clarify the relationship between her and dad has been one of irritation. It is as if she is so set on the idea of getting dad out of her house that the facts of the matter are unwelcome evidence, an inconvenient truth. She's deeply wrapped, mentally, in her Orwellian rewriting of history to suit herself. Photographs double-plus-ungood!

I've not yet had an opportunity to present mum with the two photographs side by side. I'll try to have them ready soon, or soon enough. I have no idea what her reaction could be. As I said, it could be something like, 'Oh, yes. I've seen those things!' or a sudden delighted intake of breath followed by minutes of fond fingering and stroking. We shall see.

I just looked for Kay's Studio on the Internet. Not a single mention. Obviously some kind of fly-by-night organisation.