Recently I was visiting an old block of flats
(Edwardian?). Climbing the communal
stairs I was struck, to the point of pausing my ascent, by a vague smell. Not an unpleasant smell. Not one that I would associate with rubbish
or neglect. Indeed, the block is very
well maintained. It took me a moment to
appreciate the significance of aroma. It
was exactly the same smell that I associate with the tenement block in
Cambridge Heath Road, east London, that my Grandparents lived in. I say ‘associate with’ but I don’t think I
have ever encountered or even thought about the smell since I was a young
child. In a moment I was back to the
flat occupied by Nan and Pop (as I knew them).
They moved from that address in about 1968 to go to a flat in Hackney. They stayed there only a short while before
moving to a another, newly built, ground floor flat around the corner from
their original address. The other smell
I associate with visits to the grandparental home is that of home cooked lentil
and bacon soup – a staple that has continued through another couple of
generations and probably goes back long before my grandparents.
Smells are very powerful memory triggers. Not long ago I noticed the smell of the
London Underground. At Lambeth North I
detected the smell of the Underground as it was many years ago, as I remember
it from childhood. Like the smell in the block of flats I cannot
describe the components of the odour – just the immediate connection with times
past.
How reliable are such memory triggers? I don’t know.
Our minds play tricks on us.
Unlike sights and sounds we don’t have photographs, films or recordings
to evidence our memories (or even to corrupt the evidence of our memories).
There is a lot of academic literature on the link between
memory and smell. It is of course
possible to imagine smells that aren’t there (phantosmia). It seems that the memory of smells is a
complex subject that touches on the ancient needs of our ancestors to detect
dangers and food.
I do know just what an impact olfactory memories can
have. The sense of time and place is almost
overwhelming. Impactive enough to set me
off again on the long neglected task of researching the complex background of
the Scott/Duncan/McGavin families.
Philip Trendall
April 2023
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