麻豆约拍

Mark Tully considers the consequences of mis-remembering the past. Why do people have different memories of the same event, and how can we remember things that never happened?

The programme includes ideas from American psychologist Elizabeth Loftus, who suggests that memory works a little bit like a Wikipedia page which you can change, but others can change too. She has warned against the dangers of certain therapies that lead to 鈥榝alse memory鈥� and unreliable accusations against innocent people.

In poetry, Ravi Shankar describes memories as the 鈥榳obbly beams鈥� on which we build our self-respect, and Carol Ann Duffy explores the dark side of a childhood misremembered.

Perhaps Jane Austen鈥檚 heroine in Mansfield Park puts it best, when Fanny Price proclaims, 鈥淭he memory is sometimes so retentive, so serviceable, so obedient; at others, so bewildered and so weak; and at others again, so tyrannic, so beyond control!鈥�.

A Unique Broadcasting Company Production for 麻豆约拍 Radio 4