Memory loss

A news item today mentions the case of a man who turned up in Denver without a clue who he was or what he was doing there. After an appeal on American TV his fiancee in Olympia Washington recognised him and he was reunited with the family that he'd forgotten all about.

Sound strange ?

Well, yes it is, but not unique.

Andrew Purdy could lose his memory if you hit him hard enough.

In 1974 I was a tall gangly youth of 17 I was at what would now be called 6th form college although what I was doing there is anyones guess - in fact I was there because I couldn't be arsed getting a job and two years messing about with my mates in 6th form seemed like a good alternative to working - nothing changes eh ?

We had discovered Andrew Purdy's unfortunate ability to lose his memory on the rugby pitch some years earlier - if he got a bang on the back of his head he would lose conciousness for a few seconds and when he woke up he would have varying degrees of memory loss and it would take a few hours for everything to return to him again.

At first this was merely unfortunate and when it had happened a few times the sports masters stopped him from playing rugby, which was then unfortunate for us because it was quite fun to watch him try and work out who we were and more importantly who he was.

By the time we had reached 6th form we had mastered the art of making him blank out and knew exactly where to hit him on the back of the head and how hard, the memory loss being dictated by how hard you hit him - in the rough and tumble world of an all boys school it seemed like fun at the time.

And then one day we all went on an end of term day trip to Scarborough.

It was a large group of hyper active 17 year olds who descended from the steps of the bus and headed straight for the nearest pub and some time later we all took a stroll along a steep grassy embankment on the sea front. As was always the case when we were all gathered together it only took one person to trip someone else up and suddenly you'd have a huge ball of dust with of limbs flying from the periphery as we partook in a youthfull mock fight, twenty of us rolling all over the grassy bank, throwing each other down the hill, occasional bouts of serious fighting when someone went too far and blood was spilt - all typical stuff that happens when young males gather together to bond.

And when the dust settled and we all sat on the grass bank exhausted, pissed, bloody and laughing, someone noticed that Purdy was missing - and there in the distance we spotted him, making his way into the town centre.

We sat and stared at him for a while and then someone asked where we thought he was going and a few seconds later as the penny dropped someone else asked if he'd been involved in our rumble on the grass and if anyone had hit him on the back of the head - a lone voice admitted that yes he may have had a "bit of a bang".

We chased after him yelling his name as we ran but of course he couldn't acknowledge us, as far as he was concerned we were shouting "Purdy" at one of the seagulls circling above his head. When we grabbed hold of him he ran away, scared by this gang of youths who were shouting things at him that he couldn't comprehend.

He ran into an amusement arcade and sought sanctuary with the woman who doled out the coins to the punters and when we all ran in after him she shoo'ed us all off and threatened us with the police, there was nothing more we could do but leave Purdy and his blank mind with a woman who ran the amusement arcade - it was like an Enid Blyton story where some random orphan is brought up by gypsies.

He turned up back in Leeds the next day after having spent a night in Scarborough Hospital and finally being able to tell them who he was and where he came from, his dad had to drive over to the coast to pick him up and wasn't best pleased with any of us - that was the last time that we made Purdy's brain reboot as he was told to play with boys who "weren't as rough" and presumably didn't know where to hit him or how hard.


More rubbish from the JerryChicken biography here