CLKD is right when she says it's hard to pick out what a real memories and what are 'implanted' from stories others have told!
I can definitely remember sleeping in a huge bed at a B&B on the way to a holiday (no idea where we were going - probably Cornwall if it involved breaking the journey) - my Mum put a chair by the bed to stop me falling out, and my baby brother slept in a 'bed' made of blankets on the floor. He was born in July, and it was a summer holiday, so he must have been tiny, and I will have been 2 or 3 (my birthday is August). I have a vague idea the B&B was run by a Mrs Cleverly!
But I KNOW my 'memory' of Plymouth Ho! is planted .... I have heard so many stories of my little brother trying to pick up the painted dots on the road that I have a mental picture of him, dressed in a turquoise knitted romper suit that he's wearing in a photo from the right time, floating around in a big empty nothing surrounded by painted spots! It's a big empty nothing as it's not a real memory, so I have no recollection of what Plymouth Ho! looks like!!
I think the problem is that a lot of our memories can be 'overwritten' by what other people tell us. For example, with my grandfather, I could hear him singing really clearly in my mind until my mum realised that that was the person I was talking about. She thought he had an awful singing voice, so after that, every time his name came up in conversation, she would say 'oh, my poor daughter was only a baby & she can remember him singing; poor thing, imagine being able to remember that' and then she would do an 'imitation' of him, singing in a really silly, croaky voice and mocking him. Now, when I think about him, all I can hear is her voice doing that stupid 'impersonation', which makes me really sad.
One thing I've found useful in working out whether I am remembering the event, or what other people have told me is to see if I can see myself in the event. So, I can remember playing with my ride-on toy donkey, and all I can see in the memory is the grass and the donkey's back and ears. But I have a 'memory' from the same time of a neighbour helping me build a tower with my wooden bricks and me knocking it over, and I can see me knocking it over. So that is obviously me remembering what I've been told (the poor man was an architect & used to build these amazing creations only to have them flattened by me!!!)
