Memories are made of this

She looked – no, make that glared – at me. The face was familiar. But the name eluded me.

“You’ve forgotten who I am, haven’t you?” she said. And I couldn’t argue.

When she told me her name and where we had met, it was easy: she was a fellow journalist on a travel trip a couple of years ago. I have probably met, on average, at least 20 new people a month for the past 30 years or so.

And because I have covered such a wide variety of topics in my time as a reporter, any contacts I do make are not concentrated in one area.

Still, that encounter did worry me, especially as it came only a few days after a leading Afrikaans businessman announced he was releasing some control over his company because he had been diagnosed with the early signs of dementia.

Those who know me will say that will be very difficult to detect in me because I have been various degrees of demented for most of my life.

However, as you age, you do start to worry about things like Alzheimer’s – that most terrible affliction, which I call the “death of a thousand deaths”.

My father, who lived to 85, and my mother, who died at 89, did not, fortunately, suffer from Alzheimer’s or dementia … so I do have heritage on my side.

When my father did start showing signs of Parkinson’s disease, and bemoaned his loss of strength and movement – never mind the shaking – I would tell him he was lucky.

At least he would have his memories and, especially, would still know who his children were.

The incident of the forgotten journo, apart from worrying me just a little, got me thinking about the importance of memory. I have been blessed – some say cursed – with the Irish talent for remembering even the tiniest details … for decades.

These are normally preserved in the bitchiness quadrant of the brain, to be resurrected in perfect clarity when a knife needs to be put into someone.

That’s a problem at the moment, because I am working on a book about my life and I have never forgotten where certain journalists have buried their skeletons.

Writing about those, though the recollections will be perfectly accurate, runs the risk of lawsuits. And, in any court of law, “my memory’s better than yours” won’t help my defence team much.

In my years as a reporter, I have been reasonably competent in shorthand and have seldom relied on recording devices.

That is not arrogance – it simply takes much longer to transcribe from a recording, and deadlines wait for no one.

In casual circumstances, I often don’t make notes at all and rely on my short-term memory.

I’ve often had interview subjects call me in incredulous tones after reading a piece in the paper.

“But you never took any notes – how do you remember that? I have never been a member of the “selfie generation” – a reporter’s job is to record, not be the story – so it goes against the grain.

Then I had a thought: why not record the memorable parts of each day, or each week, as they happen? I always thought diaries were for lovelorn teenage girls, but maybe it’s time for a rethink.

I’ll start this week – if I don’t forget …