Memories are scary...an example

[bookzombie]

The other day I watched the movie Thunderbird Six for the first time since I was pretty young - I'm guessing around  seven or eight years old.

It was rubbish, frankly. Thunderbirds are Go! stands the test of time much better (and even that couldn't be described as good), T6 is just dull and silly. Just getting that out of the way, but it's not what I really wanted to talk about.

The thing is I had really clear memories about some of the things that happen in the film.

Most of them, it turns out, are completely false.

Okay, so my memory of the plot is something like this: An old friend of Jeff Tracy's turns up on the island with his Tiger Moth biplane. There's an emergency and they have to try and mount a rescue operation without Jeff's friend finding out. Eventually they end up using the Tiger Moth in the rescue and it is later declared as Thunderbird 6.

The only thing that is right in that description is that the Tiger Moth is used in a rescue and becomes Thunderbird 6. The friend of Jeff's doesn't exist. Instead, it is Alan Tracy's plane and he flies it to England with Tin Tin.

I've scanned through an episode guide, wondering if perhaps I'd conflated two Thunderbirds stories, but only one bears any passing resemblance - a late episode where a young boy finds out the Tracy's secret. So where my memory of the story comes from, I have absolutely no idea. But I would have put money on it before re-watching the film.

The scary thought is what other memories of that age might be total fabrications...

Comments

[replyhazy.livejournal.com]

Oh dear. This sounds remarkably familiar.

One place that my memory tends to fail me is (in general) on quality.

SCENE

RH: Hey, look, Vintage Cartoon of the 1970s is on! I used to always watch this! It was great!

B: Let's see!

(5 min pass)

RH: Good heavens. This is utter crap.

B: Probably looked great when you were 7, though.

[swisstone.livejournal.com]

You memory does come from another episode. You are conflating Thunderbird 6 with "Edge of Impact".

[bookzombie.livejournal.com]

Ah! Thank you Tony. I am slightly less worried about my sanity than I was...

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

I have a very vivid memory of a scene in a book I read when I was about 12 that, it turns out, happens completely offstage. The text cuts from the setup to the denouement and leaves the rest to, er, the imagination. But until I went back a few years ago to look it up I would have sworn it was there.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

Oddly enough, I had the almost exact opposite reaction on rewatching the first (black and white) season of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea) when 4 rebroadcast it in the late 80s. It was all there, even the dialogue, almost exactly as I remembered it. But then, I'd generally retold the stories to my best friend, who also loved the series but didn't get to watch it very often, when we met up on Monday at school. I was expecting to have got it all wrong...

This also occurred with my other 60s favourite, Garrison's Gorillas. My memory for anything except trivia is appalling. My memory for trivia, on t'other hand...

[gummitch.livejournal.com]

But, all memories are fabrications.

[stevegreen.livejournal.com]

I thought Thunderbird 6 was fairly naff when I saw it at a local cinema in 1968.

Can't recall if anyone bothered explaining how a Gypsy Moth could fly to England from an island in the middle of the Pacific. Probably the same way a helicopter flew from New York to Loch Ness in the 1970s Spider-Man cartoon series, and Spidey then walked through a hidden tunnel to turn up in central London.