MEMORY

 How memory works is a puzzle but it is clear that memory is a way of organising experiences.It is imperfect in that the memory may be   hard to recover, and may be imperfect when the initial understang of eveny is in error. Rubbish in, rubbish out, you might say.

Gradual memory loss is regarded as the early stage of dementia and patients are referred to 'memory clinics'.In my wife's case, it was quick and sudden, possibly a  long term effect of brain damage, undiagnosed up to that point.  She had a series of stroke-like episodes at the end of 2015. A brain scan in Januage reveal consoderable brain damage. This affected her ability to read, talk and understand.

So what is memory? It can be compared to the brain's operating system structuring and connecting varied experiences to make it meaningful.Memory is not just the recall of experiences or information but is an attempt to explain. These explanations will be subjective and personal. Dementia blocks these explanations.

Enhancing Memory.   

Some memories are embedded and are generally at the centre of our minds. They may be triggered by high spots or low. They are fundamental to who we think we are. My situation has changed requiring me to sift through draws and boxes, relics of sixty years of adult life fed by the question 'Do I keep it or throw it?'. The same issues arose when clearing out my mother' house ready for selling. It is the deeper well hidden memories that I am focusing on here.

A necessary preparation is to release storage of the things we wish to keep. For me, throwing away is difficult and the first question to myself is whether it can be reused, repurposed even upcycled. As I do not have the time or inclination to upcycle, re-use by moving things around is an option, or giving it away to an upcycler for more drastic changes. Disposing of 'stuff' needs to be disciplined and unsentmental, reducing everyday items such as sheets, towels and good quality clothes to charity shops or even displaying it on the roadside free to take or requesting a charity donation.This will leave some souvenirs which remind us of people and holiday. By all means keep just a few significant ones but a photograph takes up less space.

I find that the act of decluttering triggers memories of a half forgotten past, holidays enjoyed, achievements made, relationships consolidated. There are a few items from my wife's childhood - a musical box, a child's tea-set, a teddy, a toy sewing machine, and a large Rupert Bear collection. These mean nothing to her now. Some are distributed to friends to consolidate their memories, much as happened after my mother's death.

 Memory, Experience and Research

When I  studied for my PhD in the 1970s, I was taught that research consisted in finding information (historical sources in my case) and interpreting these as objectively as possible. Subjectivity was frowned on. Indeed, it might have led to my failure. In the decade that followed, topics like biblical marriage, family and women were taken over by female young scholars who used feminist interpretations which incorporated their own experience as girls and women, summed up by Phyllis Trible's Texts of Terror featuring rape and violence.  There followed a substantial movement of Biblical research highlighting the female experience of patriarchy. This was part of the development of qualitative research which focuses on experience as opposed to being countable and observable. Memories might be inaccurately remembered and need verifying, maybe by triangulation, via documentation or by other participants. Equally documentation might be incorrect requiring information to be carefully checked. A comparison of newspaper items shows this. Even eye witnesses often disagree on major details.

Also evocative of visits and holiday, TV programmes remind us of places visited. While writing this, I am watching Alice Roberts' tour of the archaeology of Egypt and being reminded of our similar trip in 1982. Similarly, trips around the middle and far east brings back memories. The Repair Shop makes me look again at some worn-out items. Having spent my life studying and collecting plants, replacing casualties and using TV as my eyes and ears replaces nearly forgotten experiences and knowledge.

Memory and Story

The human brain spins memories into a coherent story. That story may reflect reality, or may be delusional, at least in part.. It the story might over-emphasis personal weakness or guilt, or may spin the memories to justify  dubious behaviour.  It will be important to verify the story from the memories of others involved.

So  memories are embedded in stories which establish their  contexts. My own stories of childhood and schooling can be found earlier in this blog. A story is a remembered account of what happened but also will contain some explanation: such explanation will not always be credible, serving more as self justification. There is a very thin line between fact and fiction leading to some confusion. Most historical accounts require verification. Some newspapers  have been deliberately deceptive. We create our own stories, about coping with the present and planning to pursue goals. Our personal stories might be positive or negative, promoting achievement or failure, remembering successes or failures. The secret is to learn from both. 

In my wife's case, loss of memory happened rapidly, days rather than weeks. It reduced her ability to read, write, sew and knit, indeed anything which requires hand-eye coordination. She could no longer tell the  time or find her way around the house.She had for several years been a volunteer in Kelmscott Manor but at the end came home upset because she could't do what was required. The cause was brain damage after illness, as a brain scan revealed in January 2016.

One element of qualitative research is the biographies/ autobiographies of researchers and researched, providing a context for the research. This kind of research exists to understand and explain. based on memories and personal history, gleaned from interviews and discussions. This produces deeper data which can be questioned and interogated during the interview to enrich the data. 

There are useful questions: how did life experience as a child shape the kind of adult you became? Are questions of nature and nurture significant? When does childhood end? My memory of childhood is being curious, asking lots of questions and challenging what I was told. My refusal to believe inFather Christmas from the age of three gave great concern to local parents. I was an early reader and have scarcely slowed down since. I remember giving a talk age 9 on becoming a scientist when grew up so must have been confident at public speaking. I was active, camping, football and so on. And from time to time quite naughty. Childhood finished aged around 14 as I began to study for university and gained some responsibily in the home.By the age of 21 I was married and enrolled on a PhD.

Disappearing memories

For some, myself included, memories get brighter over time, but for others detail dims, names disappear, and facial recognition becomes confused. Usually some brain problem is at the root, maybe Alzheimers, or a stroke or some other damage to the brain caused by accident or illness. Alas, as people grow older, dementia numbers rocket; and environmental polution makes its onset earlier in life. Finding loved ones forgetting who you are is painful. But it is part of life's inevitability. 

Stevie Dufyn, March 2024.

        

50th Anniversary of my PhD

 My PhD was completed and handed in during 1974. We were married since 1969 and my grant ended in 1973. To pay the mortgage I had to take a post of secondary school teacher in Buxton. The school had merged a secondary modern with a grammar school and all was not going well. My head of depaertment had had a brakedown in November and our pregnancy miscarried. It was the year the school leaving age was raised to sixteen. Half of my teaching timetable was with pupils who didn't want to be there. I wrote up my research during this difficult year.

I chose my research topic in 1969. My course was Biblical Studies and I was inspired by a course on ancient Hebrew social institutions by Arnold Anderson and noticed that there had been very little recent research on this theme. I had already had a major row with my church on the rights of women which ultimately caused me to leave that church. Much more has been published now, mainly by women but mine was the first detailed analysis. Most new research focuses on  rather thanparticular stories, mostly of violence against women. My analysis was broader, indeed too broad. Having supervised 20 PhDs and persuaded students to think deeply rather than in breadth, I realise that I was given no such advice but just expected to get on with it. Also this was a period of emphasis on the Old Testament as history, whereas now I focus on the Bible as story which may or may not be historical. I corrected this in the structure of my 1989 book Creating the Old Testament.

As previous research had used (and misused) social anthrology this was where I started. There were some benefits (for example debunking proposed evolutionary stages) but overall was not a good use of my time. Comparing Hebrew with other Mesopotamian source, for  example the Hammurabi and Assymian Lawcodes was more profitable.. Source criticism was then unnecessarily time-consuming. My substantive chapters are on marriage customs, intermarriage, incest, adultery, and levirate marriage.A final section on the family was more than I should have attempted, although the work on patriarch was useful. I never managed to publish except for one article on Leviticus 18 and 20, on forbidden marriages. Indeed I now can see that a great deal of extra work was needed to turn the thesis into a book. Feminist research was taking off in the 1980s, pioneered by Phyllis Trible, which led to an enormous body of new literature which I continue to study.

FIRST MONTH HOME

 I arrived home from hospital just before Christmas. I bought a smartphone and laptop to give myself computing on the road. My wife has settled into the care-home very well and her sister was able to visit. I changed my GP to a local surgery who have been helpful. I was getting on well with my physio when unfortunately I fell backward against a table and propably cracked a rib. So it is painkillers for a while. It is most painful when getting out of bed or a chair or twisting awkwardly. 

I was making good progress but my mobility and confidence suffered. The fall was caused by getting out of bed too quickly and losing my balance. My back and ribs were bruised by a bedside table giving me a sharp pain when sitting and lieing in bed and especially when coughing. Pain killers help. It is gradually improving so fingers crossed.

Hospital wrecked my eyesight so I have new glasses which I am getting used to.I now have to learn how to use my new smart-phone and Tablet  So a busy time ahead!

END OF 2023

 Apologies for those who did not receive a seasonal card, which means everyone. I was admitted to hospital on November 22. I was without computer or address book and flat on my back for the five weeks, uncomfortably. We placed my wife in a good care home locally where she is being safe and continues to settle. I had cared for her over seven years and could no longer do so safely. She doesn't know who I am and so does not fret.

It is hard to describe something so boring as lying in a hospital bed staring at the ceiling being kept awake by lights at night, snoring and nurse chatter I was next to the nurse station. At 6am we were woken up by lights on and first obs (blood pressure, blood oxygen and temperature. Then a light breakfast. I was urged to eat and drink more, bur couldn't, my stomach and lungs were restricted by the fluid. Being on water tablets I peed all night.Meds came next, then doctors did their rounds.Of the nurses, a number came from Kerela South India and were delighted tha t had been there.

As it was a teaching hospital junior doctors crowded around my be, and interviewed me about my symptoms. Two carried out the drain after being shown how, and under supervision. In excess of10 litres were drained off, I was never told how much.That reduced my size and weight -- and of course energy.

The final week was in 'intermediate care' (rehabilitation) which was disappointing. Physio led, I didn't see a physio till day 4. They had to tick off simple tasks about living at home - could I make a cup of tea, climb stairs, wash and dress mayself and walk safely with a zimmer frame. I could do all these on the main ward but was forbidden to do most without supervision on rehab. I spent more time in bed because I was forbidden to walk around. I soon rebelled and the  staff gave up on me. By Friday the allowed me home, proving handrails, chair arms, a shower seat and bed  rails to help me out of bed. I am making good progress. I am eating better and drinking better. I hope I begin to put some weight on now.

Respect.

Written on International Women's Day 2023.

The song Respect had a history in the 1960s, promoted by Otis Redding and redirected by Aretha Franklin into the feminist anthem it became. It came from the 1960s but seems tame today - when her man comes home, give the lady some respect.

All I'm askin'
(Oo) Is for a little respect when you come home (just a little bit)

It led to the song Natural Woman, which was again not the feminism that would develop later:

When my soul was in the lost and found
You came along to claim it
I didn't know just what was wrong with me
'Til your kiss helped me name it
Now I'm no longer doubtful, of what I'm living for
And if I make you happy I don't need to do more
'Cause you make me feel
You make me feel
You make me feel like a natural woman

Today's feminism demands agency andfree choices which are free of patriarchy (that is male demands. Women musicians were freeing themselves from male demands to be pretty eye candy, subject to 'the male gaze' criticising their looks, bodies and behaviour. Violence against women was and is a consequence of these outdated male attitudes. The battle for female emancipation is renewed still, decade by decade.

Respect was a civil rights theme also. Bob Dylan's Blowing in the Wind became a civil rights anthem:

And how many years can some people exist
Before they're allowed to be free?
Yes, and how many times can a man turn his head
And pretend that he just doesn't see?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind

The chorus draws on the Biblical book of Ecclesiastes: all is vanity and a striving after wind. It cannot be grasped.. Such a text would be well known to Robert Zimmerman.

I had been involved as a carer to my younger siblings through the 1960s. Those years were controlled by the evangelical Christian group called Plymouth Brethren who devalued the role of women. Many of the young women I knew never really broke away. When my mother did, she said that she wished had broken away years before because she found her local church so welcoming and supportive. I as a 17 year old raised the issue of female freedoms in a Bible study public meeting (led by a preacherer ironically called Short) and was shouted at by an out of control former 'Exclusive Brethren' member, bullying of the highest order. I was taken to task by the 'oversight', the senior men because I had asked such a question. Good grief!. They were wrong and I was right. My PhD topic was about marriage and the position of women in society. My first publication in 1972 was about women in the Bible, not brilliant but at least authentic.

By the time I arrived at Manchester University, the evangelical fundamentalism I had been brought up with have been challenged and rejected. Essentially I had become an enemy to patriarchy and to coercive behaviour in general. I was slow to distance myself from evangelicalism. I remember seeing adverts for the Bahai Faith in my first university term. In that transitional period of my life I might have joined them as they have much that morally appeals to me. In terms of this item, Bahais believe in equality of the sexes and condemnation of misogyny. Their belief in the divine was less fundamentalist than I had been taught with more emphasis on mystery. Today I find this harder as I have distanced myself from divine realism (as opposed to a symbolic metaphor). I nevertheless value my later work with Bahais.

My life has always been female focused and my social and academic ambitions have been concerned with the emancipation of women, both in real life and in student work. My wife too devoted her teaching life to supporting female students and colleagues. Some are still in touch. There are some interesting stories. School teacher friends in Oldham married in the early 1970s and we agreed to drive them to their hotel. But they were interested in steam railways and had a long term connection to the Worth Valley Railway and on their wedding day the preserved locomotive 92220 Evening Star, the last steam locomotive to be built (1960) was in Haworth where a party was arranged. So of course we drove them to Haworth, where we all enjoyed the party before delivering them to their hotel. Meantime, back at the wedding, folks had decorated their own car with tin cans, only to see us drive away on our Austin A40. 50 years later they are still close friends.

In the late 1980s I was working in teacher training in Oxford, and she became deputy head of a girls' comprehensive school, a quarter of whose pupils were Asian, mostly Pakistani. We became very close to the Pakistani community. This paragraph features a close friend who has been like family now for 35 years. Though she had a teaching qualification from the Punjab, she was only allowed to work as a teaching assistant in England, working with the Equal Opportunities Centre. She registered for an MEd which she passed, and with the help of our local HMI Ron Arnold we managed to secure qualified teacher status for her in 1990. We went to Pakistan for a family wedding in 1992 and as I worked away in Birmingham that year Jean stayed with her to save her commute during the week. The school closed because of falling numbers, leaving Muslim girls with no school to go to. So this friend and Jean set up a small Muslim girls secondary school which had excellent exam results and help many girls to university courses. I supervised this friend for her PhD for which she interviewed 80 former pupils about their educational experiences and their consequences. She now was an Oxford University post.

A final story. Jean worked in Swindon College from the early 2000s until the powers that be unfairly closed the department. A colleague and friend.applied for and was offered a school post subject to references, but Jean found the request sitting unanswered in an in-tray. Enough to say that after a bit of shouting, a reply hit the post that day and the offer was confirmed. There the colleague met her husband and has been happily married now for twenty years.

I hope we have both enriched the lives of the women and girls we have met and taught and encouraged them towards independent lives with personal agency.

FRAGMENT: The 1980s.

 The 1980s started with a job move to North Riding College, Scarborough, then affiliated to Leeds University. I was to teaching in a course on world religions, and education studies. Jean stayed at home commuting to Devizes School with a colleague, Lionel, and applied for a couple of posts in Yorkshire without success. We looked at a few houses, again without success. My knowledge of world religions was sketchy, drawn from the few school textbooks then available. This post offered me the opportunity of in depth study. In order to balance my secondary school teaching experience I studies for the Post Graduate Certificate in Early Years Education which included a dissertation in early reading. I supervised students in early years settings as well as junior and middle schools. I lodged firstly in a 'winter let' (holiday flat hired for the winter season) and in summer had a flat in the College. My study on Filey Road overlooked the harbour and castle, built-in distraction. The journey to coffee in the winter was very cold. Home was 310 miles away so I couldn't get home every weekend. Jean came over during her half term.

There were memorable events and incidents. There was a classical music series who put on fortnightly concerts. I remember a performance of Samuel Barber's Reincarnations, a composer of importance to us who had recently died. A different group went to Opera North: I remember Boheme in Leeds and Samson and Delilah in Hull, the first operas I had been to. I was in the chorus of the Gilbert and Sullivan light opera The Sorcerer in 1982, by first and last experience of performing. Our student days were to orchestral events in the Manchester Free Trade Hall. 

I applied for and accepted a similar post in Westminster College, Oxford. from April 1983 and we looked for and bid for our current house near Swindon between Oxford and Jean's job in Devizes - a restoration project that would take many years to complete. Jean became Head of Careers in her school, in  addition to her history teaching. She made close friends I am still in touch with today, but more inexplicably enemies, In retrospect I think some victimized her for her hidden disability, the brain damage I have spoken about elsewhere, the effects of which she coped with admirably. Most of my work in Oxford I focused on education, including multi-faith religious education. Biblical Studies was taught by a different team. I taught Interfaith Studies in a new degree, and developed it into a distance learning degree, M.Th, in  Pastoral Studies for church ministers. The sessions on Islam, Hinduism and Sikhism are still online. The Judaism module was co-written and does not survive online. I became Postgraduate Tutor in 1986 in charge of PGCE primary and secondary and planned an Early Years version. Course leadership was gradually delegated so my role changed in the 1990s.

During the 1980s I put together a book for university students on the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible. We wanted it to be written quickly so divided the 16 chapters between different writers, all university lectures or professors. It was the story of the writing of the Old Testament. I gave it the title Creating the Old Testament: The Development of the Hebrew Bible published by Basil Blackwell in 1989. One writer pulled out and I wrote the chapter on Moses in her place. Another did not write to brief, so I rewrote 'Stories of the Prophets'. My scheduled chapters were Introduction, 'The Bible and Islam' and 'Symbol and Metaphor'. 

The book followed the general pattern of Torah (Law), Prophets and Writings, with a final chapter oon the additional books in the Septuagint, the Greek translation/version. The assumption of the book was to follow the evidence rather than assuming belief, so it was a critical and not conservative text.  Thirty five years later it is still in print.

I also became involved with the union (NATFHE) Religious Studies Section which produced the journal Journal of Beliefs and Values for which I wrote and reviewed frequently. There is a list on my CV on stephenbigger.blogspot.com. 

FRAGMENT: The 1970s

 We married in the summer vacation of 1969 before Jean started her new job in Oldham Unfortunately we had already offered on a house in Marple on the edge of Greater Manchester town and country.  The view over Manchester below was stupendous. That meant a tricky commute to Oldham through Hyde and Dukinfield. A colleague lived close by so they shared lists from time to time.. She was a history teacher with some religious education. It was a bizarre school, an independent grammar school that used to be called 'Direct Grant' as opposed to Local Authority schools. The heads of departments came out of the ark and we still have Miss Roker's greening academic gown with occasional cigarette burns, all a bit of a change from the rough and tumble secondary moderns of her teaching practices where the high spot was Shite O'Brian, nicknamed for her vocabulary. Once I remember she got to school only to find she had lost her voice - not noticed earlier since our morning routine did not include conversation.

From those four years in Oldham some friendships still exist. Among her pupils were daughters of a Yorkshire TV producer who reappeared in her life unexpectedly. As she graduated in Oxford's Radcliffe Camera for her MSc in 1986, the eldest daughter graduated for her PhD and we found ourselves reminiscing with her step-mum and sister, her own mother having died a decade before.

My time was taken up with PhD research for which I had three years funding. My undergraduate work had been in critical Biblical Studies and my PhD focussed on ancient Hebrew marriage, something that had been scarcely tackled up to then (1970). That was finished in 1974 before a major wave of feminist study linking exegesis (explaining what texts say) to female experience today (hermeneutics) enabled writers to go down relevant experiential wormholes.  Times have changed and my own normal advice to my PhD candidates to to look for depth rather than breadth, contrary to the advice I was given.

When funding finished in 1973 the mortgage still had to be paid. My grant had been £600 per year, the house cost £4300 and the monthly mortgage was £22 6/8. We wanted to start a family so needed to supplement my wife's salary. Pregnancy normally meant giving up your job in those days. Pregnancy happened very quickly and I was offered a post in Buxton, a new convergence of grammar and secondary modern schools. I had not done a PGCE, which was not required then, so it was learning on the job in the deep end. The baby miscarried in November and there were no more pregnancies. Throughout the 1970s a succession of crude medical interventions were unsuccessful. IVF was first successfully performed in 1978. Discussions with the adoption services accepted our application eventually, but after four years of ineffectiveness. We offered a home to up to three siblings, any colour or condition, but they would only sanction a white baby (who never appeared). The 'service' had no further communication with us. Additionally our niece died of  meningitis aged eight in 1977. So all in all it was not a good decade.

The merging of two schools did not go well. Nor did starting a teaching career without guidance or mentors. My Head of Department had a nervous breakdown in November (I found him crying in the cloakrooms) so I was in charge of a department of one. My teaching load was around 800 pupils, one lesson a week so it was hard to build relationships, hell at report time. I had more time with pupils who did not want to be there. It was ROSLA year when the school leaving age was raised to 16 leaving a reluctant cohort imprisoned and unable to get jobs. So I looked out for teaching posts which meant I could leave mistakes behind and have GCE classes. It was rare then for an RE teacher not to be a regular churchgoer so an atheist like me did not fit in well, so my next job was in Wiltshire a local authority grammar school about to go comprehensive. That meant a major upheaval moving house and for Jean a change of job. Reflecting on those choices in retrospect, that was not a good decision. The distance from family and friends. My new school had many failings and poor leadership. Jean had opportunities for promotion in Devizes, though her line manager was misogynist which had mental health implications. 

 I was offered a term of 'schoolteacher fellowship' in in St Martin's College, Lancaster in 1979 hoping to turn my PhD thesis into a book. That did not succeed, but had other implications. The decade allowed us to see my mother's sister in Portsmouth, who we became close to, and my grandparents in Nottinghamshire, a rather longer journey. Salisbury also had a good theatre, often frequented. However, retrospective reflection contain moments of regret and none of this was easy on Jean, a guilt I now feel strongly. It left Jean at the mercy of grunting hedgehogs and an escaped tiger which made the national news. The circus came to Devizes and a tiger escaped and wandered around the school. While senior staff hid in their cloakrooms, Jean rounded up the pupils outside to bring them to safety. This is how management delegation works: never do anything you can't get some other poor soul to do.

The staff begged me to be the union rep in a school that was increasingly unhappy. That was probably a mistake and certainly brought me no benefit. The headteacher regarded me as a threat, not a supportive helper and our relationship was soured. The chance came for university level teaching, so the 1980s saw many changes.