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What can you remember of your childhood? This was the question put to a number of 'seniors' asked to start from as far back as they could get, and go as far as the onset of adolescence. Their answers are in this unusual book.
Topics naturally include their physical self; their parents, siblings, grandparents, friends, playmates, teachers, classmates, pets; their manners, training, rewards and punishments; food; play, toys; likes, dislikes; schools, kindergarten, elementary; outings, holidays, travel; notable experiences; dreams, nightmares, pleasures, fears.
They were also invited to give an account of their physical surroundings, their home, and the context of everyday life, what they took for granted; and to draw attention to a past in which so much of what is now common was then absent: TV, cell-phones, ubiquitous motor cars, air travel.
The question was directed to and accepted by people from a number of countries and with a range of experiences. Several are or were academics, and the introduction contains some comments on memory and points to commonalities among the remembered experiences, as well as differences. But the book is mainly for the general reader, who may want to ask: what can I remember of my childhood? - Let me try!
List of contents
Introduction (Nicholas Tarling)
1.Memories of my Childhood in the Black Forest (Elizabeth Arndt)
2.Childhood in Iowa (Jake Dailey)
3.Altar Boy (George Dibley)
4.Memories of Childhood (Paul G. Halpern)
5.The Java 'Podiyan" of Maligawatte: my early life (B.A. Hussainmiya)
6.Memories of Childhood (Pradeep Kanthan)
7.What Mattered was Europe and its Music - an Australian Childhood (Colin Mackerras)
8.Memories of Childhood (Ruth Malcolm)
9.Growing Up in Penang (Shakila Abdul Maman)
10.Childhood Memories (Ooi Keat Gin)
11.My Childhood Memories (Hajar Abdul Rahim)
12.Where it Began (Kenelm Robert)
13.A Reconquest of Memories (Georg Schmid)
14.Divide Austria (Sigrid Schmid)
15.Memories of my Childhood (Kobkua Suwannathat-Pian)
16.Fair-Haired Cherub (Nicholas Tarling)
17.Was it all those Years ago? (Lorraine Wheeler)
18.Memories of Childhood (Rupert Wheeler)
19.Childhood Memories to the age of 12 (Wang Gungwu)
About the author
Edited by Nicholas Tarling - Contributions by Elizabeth Arndt; Jake Dailey; George Dibley; Paul G. Halpern; B. A. Hussainmiya; Pradeep Kanthan; Colin Mackerras; Ruth Malcolm; Shakila Abdul Maman; Ooi Keat Gin; Hajar Abdul Rahim; Kenelm Robert; Georg Schmi
Summary
What can you remember of your childhood? Contributors to this book, who come from a number of different countries, go back as far as memory will take them.
