Memoirs Need Research, Too

As I work on my memoirs, I keep stopping to check facts. Not my impressions or beliefs at the time—nobody knows those better than I do—but the actual details. My parents are long dead and my older brother’s memory can no longer be relied on, so my first research tool is my other brother. But because Gordon is two years younger, his memories aren’t always any better than mine.

Consider the distance from our first apartment at 6 Fettes Row in Edinburgh, Scotland to the school Gordon and I attended there. In my memory, the walk to Stockbridge School was about a mile, mostly along Dundas Street, which ran north-south. But when I checked with Gordon, he said he had paced it off when he went back several years ago and thought it was between one-half and three-quarters of a mile. So then I got smart and decided to MapQuest it. Turns out, our walk to school was four-tenths of a mile with most of it along an east-west street.

The conversation with Gordon and the MapQuest route sparked more memories. I can see Dundas Street in my minds eye as it rises steeply toward Princes Street with the Castle looming beyond. So research not only gave me the facts, it also prompted more memories.

Two good reasons why memoirs need research, too.

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The image at the head of this post shows our flat at 6 Fettes Row and comes from a slide my father took in 1961.