Random memory recall

I thought this could spark the odd amusing tale...

What I'm asking is what random memory returned to you unexpectedly which you hadn't thought about in absolutely ages?

For example, I was reading a book about the last 40 years of Ashes cricket in the bath just now and it referenced as an aside the 5-0 England Blackwash against the West Indes in 1984. Reading this sparked a memory that my uncle won a cricket bat signed by both teams from a one day international at Trent Bridge and that I used it to actually play cricket with with a tennis ball.

Amongst the players playing that day were Gordon Greenidge, Desmond Haynes, Ritchie Richardson, Viv Richards, Clive Lloyd, Malcolm Marshall, Michael Holding and Joel Garner. England had David Gower, Alan Lamb, Ian Botham and Mike Gatting in their side.

Those names won't mean much to you young uns but lets just say that it would probably fetch a tidy sum on eBay and that playing cricket with it wasn't the wisest thing to be doing with it (especially as my uncle didn't know)

Positive it would!

Also, I have seen Yuri Gagarin when he visited Manchester! I was a little school kid with a flag!

I think you tend to get alot of mad random memories when you're very old. It's an age thing.

You probably do, but not exclusively. Proust wasn't old and he invented them! He was right about smell being the best trigger. Smells trigger the childhood memories in me, sometimes it's so strong it's like going back in a time machine. Coffee cake, sausage rolls and honeysuckle get me every time. Probably why I love baker's shops.

Smells do it for me too. Sometimes really weird things like the paper towels we used at primary school, or the smell of a very ex boyfriend's fabric conditioner.

Very ex? Did you kill him or something?

Ha no, I was trying to suggest he was verrrrrrrrry long ago.

Wearing clean clothes must be quite poignant for you, zooo.

As if I use fabric conditioner. I just smell men in the street.

Every year around bonfire night I eat a treacle toffee, takes me STRAIGHT back to being 6 at my nans, she used to make her own, then we'd have a 'bonty' and baked-spuds in the fire!

love baked-spuds]