Candyfloss and Triggered Memories

"What we remember from childhood we remember forever

- permanent ghosts, stamped, inked, imprinted, eternally seen."

- Cynthia Ozick

When I was growing up, I lived a very safe, secure existence but secretly I longed for colour, sparkles and magic. Most of this desire was satisfied by losing myself in books, with tales of The Magic Faraway Tree and the adventures to be had in the ever changing worlds that appeared in the clouds at the top of the branches. Many hours were spent curled up on my bed lost in these enchanted lands.

So imagine my delight when a travelling funfair chose the large playing field in front of my home to set up its annual visit. From my vantage point on my bedroom window sill, I could see the lorries and brightly coloured fairground equipment arrive and quickly begin transforming an empty patch of grass into a colourful kaleidascope of lights, colour, music and smells.

Laying in bed at night I could smell the diesel engines and the fried onions. I could hear the sirens, as the rides slowed down to let off the hoards of screaming girls, mixed with the sounds of the latest pop records played loud. All accompanied by the flashing lights that I could see through my closed curtains, lighting up my safe little bedroom with the excitement I craved. I felt I had pulled this bright, edgy, impermanant world into my experience, and I loved every moment it was there.

As I became a teenager and wandered through this sparkly noise filled mirage that appeared annually yards from my window, I saw a girl not much older than me sitting in the glorious pink candy floss booth edged with flashing lights. She serenely twirled a stick on which quickly built a cloud of pink candyfloss. I remember being seized with longing. I wanted to be that girl, to live amongst the sparkle and noise and every two weeks to pack up my things and to travel to the next stopping place and do it all again.

Seeing this Candy Floss stall (in the picture above) at a recent event triggered these memories and bought them flooding back.

Memories of the girl I once was and of her craving for colour and adventure.