The non-persistence of memory by Leon the Huguenot:

Do you remember who co-starred with Ronald Coleman in Lost Horizon?  You must be old!  Don't tell me you remember the film coming out and went to the premiere.  Maybe I should be writing this in Middle English just for your benefit.

If my late grandmother had been trying to recall Jane Wyatt’s name (yes, Jane was the co-star) she would have gone through the alphabet: "A...B...C".  Of course this technique assumes you remember the alphabet.  As a means of recalling a name starting with W it was not particularly efficient.  Furthermore there was no guarantee that, having reached W, your brain would spit out "Wyatt".

She had another technique which she used to remember my name.  Of course to me it was absolutely clear my name was and remains Leon.  She was not so certain.  To her I was just one of a long string of arrivals which included her own children.  She would start out saying: "Er, Viv... er, Jim... er, Jack..." (Interestingly enough, these were the names of her children in reverse order of birth; she did not usually add Gwen, my mother; she could see on inspection I was not Gwen).  I would quickly remind her I was Leon otherwise she would go through 30 or 40 names and she would not necessarily ever reach mine.

At the time I thought my grandmother's memory problems were amusing and I felt so superior with my omniabsorbent child's memory (not sure if omniabsorbent is a word -- anyway, it is now).  Now I realise that I'm developing the same problems.

It is not as if my grandmother was becoming demented.  She remained alert and interested in things for another 10 years or so until she died at 78.  But she did have memory problems for recent events and recent arrivals -- and I was a recent arrival.  We were all recent arrivals – once.  Don’t let’s go into that.

If you questioned her on details of the life of Dr Herbert Vere Evatt, her long-term hero, her knowledge was encyclopaedic.  Ask her about John Curtin and there would be no stopping her.  She did have a certain political bias.

We all know that we have difficulty with our short-term memories and usually little or no difficulty with remembering things from our distant past.  Some of us seem surprised at that but it is a commonplace observation.  Let’s make a deal.  If you don’t bore me with recollections of your youth I shall not bore you with mine – not any more than I have so far.

Rule one: it is by no means clear that repeatedly recalling long-term memories makes the slightest difference to our short-term memories.

By the way, with respect to my rules, don’t expect them to scientifically valid.  If you want science start haunting the local medical library.  Read Acta Neurologica Scandinavica from cover to cover each month and see where it gets you.  Don’t bother me with science.

Can we improve our short-term memories at our age?  I think we can.  I can't promise anything but there is no point accepting things as they are.  As Dylan Thomas said: "Do not go gentle into that good night, old age should burn and rave at close of day;" Let us therefore "burn and rave" together though in a circumspect manner or, if you will, a non-circumspect manner.

How about self-help memory books?  Have you read any of these or tried to read them?  Observing paint drying is more interesting.  In fact, in some future article, I might go into techniques of observing paint drying -- elementary and advanced.

The memory books seemed to be written by people who are quite obsessional and possibly compulsive.  Their lives are ruled by little memory routines.  They make up boring acronyms.  Eventually all they have to remember in their lives is the act of remembering itself.  You get to the end of their books and feel quite tense.  Tension is not a good circumstance for remembering.

Rule two: self-help memory books make good fire-starters.

How about medications for memory?  If you have a specific health problem which impairs your memory and that can be dealt with by the use of medication that is up to you and your doctor.  I have no wish to interfere with that.

But products sold in various stores, including health food stores, which purport to assist memory are almost undoubtedly as useful as rat manure -- and nobody's been making any claims for the latter (at least, not until now).

Rule three: the daily ingestion of rat manure results in no improvement to your memory (and makes you less attractive to rats).

I shall commence the course itself which I guess we could call the Oldies Burn and Rave Memory Course (which has the almost unpronounceable acronym OBRaMC) by mentioning a few minor counsels of perfection which I would put under the heading "give your brain a chance ".

Give Your Brain A Chance:

(1)    Nobody expects you to remember everything.

What we are aiming for here is a 10% improvement in your memory.  We're not out to make you into some tedious brainiac who appears on high-level quiz shows and earns loads of money.  Sorry.

(2)    Stop watching daytime television.

There are few things more toxic to cerebral function than daytime television.  If you are a hopeless TV addict ask yourself, what happened in 'General Hospital' yesterday or even today?  Did Hope (you can substitute Faith, Charity or one of those other strange names that US soapy heroines have) tearfully end her alliance with Brad (or Rock or Tab) yesterday or last week or last year?  Does it really matter?  Do you remember or care anything about any of the characters?

Since you will not be able to respond to any questions about these programs you will understand how toxic they are.  It is the cerebral equivalent of fairy floss and as mentally nutritious.  Of course, if you want to "go gentle into that good night" go ahead.  Let daytime television turn your mind into a wasteland, and why not eat loads of fairy floss as well to do the job properly (on advice from your doctor of course).

(3)    Simplify your life.

You know how to do it.  At our age, we have filled our lives with a lot of unnecessary clutter – physical and mental.  Do you have to grow 1600 varieties of iris?  Do you have to keep every copy of the New Idea since its inception?  Do you have to retain all those exciting handkerchiefs that Uncle Bert gave you at each birthday?

You know your mental clutter; I know mine.  There's nothing in ourselves we can click on to de-clutter.  We have to work on our priorities and ditch whatever is unnecessary.  Unless you have worked out a way to take it with you then decrapify.

(4)    Stop doing that else you'll go blind!

Sorry, not sure how that slipped out.  I’ll put it back in.  But stop doing it.

So we have laid the groundwork for an up to 10% improvement in memory.

This lesson can be summarised as follows:

Memory improvement:

- Even at your great age you can improve your memory.

- Crap in leads to crap out; cut your diet of cerebral fairy floss.

- In particular, stop watching daytime television.

- I forgot the fourth point.