Turning 75: ‘My plans for passing another of life’s milestones’

Memory is a strange thing. Apart from the eternal triangle, as it used to be called, there is perhaps no more dramatic theme in modern story-telling than the idea of contested memory. To some it is a safe deposit box or a deep-freeze or a mineshaft where the best things are stashed away, ready to be disinterred when the need arises. Like winning a petty argument, as often as not with oneself.

Others see memory as a bit of a blur, a blink of the eye that is gone in a flash, and thus to be distrusted as a credible agent of truth. Yet, much scientific study has been undertaken, I am told, of synapse and cortex and hippocampus (phew!) to try and pin down this most baffling of phenomena, second only to the soul, perhaps, in stirring the least common agreement.

When I try to visualise memory I am happy with a more graphic metaphor, that of a fissure in the rocks bordering the ocean into which surges a boiling swell immersing everything in its path. But when that swell ebbs away, back into the ocean from whence it came, rocks begin to emerge, and then more rocks which, after a few seconds, may reveal themselves as part of the same inter-connected coastal platform.

It was the vivid sound of the ocean breaking over its rocky littoral that carried me back to one summer’s afternoon, early in 1963, and found me lying on a blanket in the backyard of someone’s house (whose, I haven’t a clue) directly above Fairy Bower at Manly, New South Wales (remember the old ferry hoardings, ‘7 miles from Sydney, 1,000 miles from care’?) tuning in to the cricket while sinking a few cold ones.

It was a recent journey into my cricketing adolescence that brought me to this point, when I was reflecting on the great swashbucklers and artists I had idolised as a kid, and ended up with the gifted Neil Harvey. The silky left-hander was a god to me and, although his powers were well on the wane by the summer of 1962-63, that afternoon is scorched in my memory, being the occasion of his highest score ever, 231 not out.

But was it so? Did Neil Harvey score 231 not out one summer’s afternoon in January 1963 as my insistent memory reminded me that he had?

A trip into the Cricinfo website confirmed that the ‘computer says Yes’ and that it was indeed so: my memory, after all these years, had not played games with me. But when I looked at the date I froze. For as the ocean swell receded, revealing in its clarity Neil Harvey’s last great innings, so another rock emerged from the swell. Within days, actress Marcia Hathaway had succumbed to a savage shark attack in the upper reaches of Middle Harbour.

The death of Marcia Hathaway is seared into the psyche of every water-loving Sydneysider of my generation but, until I looked, undistracted by the particular drama of each incident, I had no idea that two such iconic memories were so inextricably linked in time. I found myself wondering whether poor Marcia Hathaway had also tuned in to the cricket that same summer afternoon. That’s the thing about memory. Although the events and people who make up our lives sweep in and out like the crashing surf, the connections between any of them are only visible when the chaotic blur of passing time recedes. Even birthdays.

By the time these words go to press I will have passed another milestone, one of the half dozen major ones that signify progress in our own private journeys. Indeed, it surprises me that although I am treated like a king by my family on my birthday each year, the only ones whose details I can specifically remember, without the aid of other relative rocks emerging from the ocean surge, are my 21st and my 50th. Both major landmarks to be sure, although I wouldn’t want to labour too long over either of them.

Which leaves me with the conundrum: How should I recognise this forthcoming landmark from which there will be no turning back? (At this point I might mention that one of the reasons why I keep my distance from the old school tie network — apart from definitely not being an Old Boy — is its sick humour in updating an actuarial assessment of our prospective dates of death. And as the gap inexorably narrows between now and then, I can only assume that the joke will ultimately be on us.)

But back to the big Seven-Five. Should such a momentous way-station be an orgy of boasting for what a successful life one has led? Give me a break. Should it be a day of atonement for all the mistakes we made? How long have you got. Should it be a travelogue of all the places we managed to see and experience? A very thin volume. Or should it be a pause for regret about all those magical spots we knew we would inevitably visit, but did not? Pens at the ready.

Should it be a festival of love towards those who made our lives worth living? Or, alternatively, the last brave act of determination to mend fences, which should have been fixed long ago? And should one do the right thing by promising to do better next time?

Having been born amid a world in conflict — the Brits were embroiled at Arnhem the day I was born and the Yanks were invading Morotai as a springboard for Dugout Doug MacArthur’s return to the Philippines — I seem to have an aversion to great events. On reflection, I don’t think I’ll do anything much on the big day and with a bit of luck my 75th will not be a rock thrusting out of the surging foam, for the world (small as it is) to leer at, but rather will vanish quietly into the opaque depths to join the other forgotten 73. Anyone for a nice, hot cup of tea and a slab of date loaf, instead?

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