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The Mandela Effect: False Memory

A small case of the Mandela Effect. A photo of my wife's late father, who died before I met her. It is one of my favourite family photos, which I have smiled at many times.

It shows a man who has always been described as quiet, downbeat, and very serious, but the black and white photo is of him riding his old-school trials motorbike off road, cloth cap on his head back to front, goggles on his forehead, and his pipe jutting out at a jaunty angle from his clenched jaw. As a motorcyclist myself, I cherish this joyful image of a man whom I never met.

Except this evening when I got in from work, the photo was up on the electronic photo frame... and there is no pipe!
 
Mikefule said:
A small case of the Mandela Effect. A photo of my wife's late father, who died before I met her. It is one of my favourite family photos, which I have smiled at many times.

It shows a man who has always been described as quiet, downbeat, and very serious, but the black and white photo is of him riding his old-school trials motorbike off road, cloth cap on his head back to front, goggles on his forehead, and his pipe jutting out at a jaunty angle from his clenched jaw. As a motorcyclist myself, I cherish this joyful image of a man whom I never met.

Except this evening when I got in from work, the photo was up on the electronic photo frame... and there is no pipe!
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It’s not a slightly different picture that was taken at the same time?
 
Mikefule said:
A small case of the Mandela Effect. A photo of my wife's late father, who died before I met her. It is one of my favourite family photos, which I have smiled at many times.

It shows a man who has always been described as quiet, downbeat, and very serious, but the black and white photo is of him riding his old-school trials motorbike off road, cloth cap on his head back to front, goggles on his forehead, and his pipe jutting out at a jaunty angle from his clenched jaw. As a motorcyclist myself, I cherish this joyful image of a man whom I never met.

Except this evening when I got in from work, the photo was up on the electronic photo frame... and there is no pipe!
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This picture also happens to be called The Treachery of Images...

Screenshot 2024-09-16 at 19.32.15.png
 
MorningAngel said:
It’s not a slightly different picture that was taken at the same time?
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Definitely not. It is a "proper photograph" (not digital) taken in the 1950s at a time when camera film was a limited resource (typically 12 or 24 shots per film) and development and printing was something you had to pay for. In those days, you made each photo count, unlike today when you can take as many as you like one after the other on a mobile phone, for free.

Furthermore, the photo in question has been scanned and put on one of those digital photo frames, and there is only 1 picture on the frame of my wife's dad on the motorbike. I see it most days without really looking at it. I have always "seen" (imagined, assumed...) a pipe clenched in his teeth. Yesterday I happened to look closely and there is no pipe, and nothing that looks like a pipe.
 
Mikefule said:
Definitely not. It is a "proper photograph" (not digital) taken in the 1950s at a time when camera film was a limited resource (typically 12 or 24 shots per film) and development and printing was something you had to pay for. In those days, you made each photo count, unlike today when you can take as many as you like one after the other on a mobile phone, for free.

Furthermore, the photo in question has been scanned and put on one of those digital photo frames, and there is only 1 picture on the frame of my wife's dad on the motorbike. I see it most days without really looking at it. I have always "seen" (imagined, assumed...) a pipe clenched in his teeth. Yesterday I happened to look closely and there is no pipe, and nothing that looks like a pipe.
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I always used to take two pictures of everything ‘just in case’ in the times of film as you didn’t know how it was coming out.
 
I've just had my own Mandela moment, which is probably just a mis-remembering rather a rewriting of history, but it's still somewhat puzzled me.

I have, for the last forty years or so, had a very clear memory of lying with my intended in his shared house when we were at Agricultural college together. We were listening to music through his housemate's stereo on a Saturday afternoon, with the radio playing. The song 'Love is a Stranger' by the Eurythmics came on. I had never heard of them, didn't know who they were, and was rather sad that this haunting electronic song would probably vanish into the ether never to be heard again, as so many weird and wonderful pieces of music did in those days. Played once or twice by someone like Annie Nightingale (RIP, Annie!) and then disappearing into the maw of 'songs picked up by Djs that never made it.'

Of course, we all know that Love is a Stranger was a big hit for Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart. But I've just been watching a YouTube thingie about Eurythmics and Tourists, and it turns out that Love is a Stranger was first released in 1982 and then again in 1983 when it was a hit.

I was at college in 1980. There's no way I could have heard that song on the radio then, it wasn't even written. I wondered if I'd been thinking of Sweet Dreams are Made of This, but that didn't come out until 1983 either. Yet I would absolutely have SWORN that I heard Love is a Stranger on that stereo in that house in 1980.
 
catseye said:
I've just had my own Mandela moment, which is probably just a mis-remembering rather a rewriting of history, but it's still somewhat puzzled me.

I have, for the last forty years or so, had a very clear memory of lying with my intended in his shared house when we were at Agricultural college together. We were listening to music through his housemate's stereo on a Saturday afternoon, with the radio playing. The song 'Love is a Stranger' by the Eurythmics came on. I had never heard of them, didn't know who they were, and was rather sad that this haunting electronic song would probably vanish into the ether never to be heard again, as so many weird and wonderful pieces of music did in those days. Played once or twice by someone like Annie Nightingale (RIP, Annie!) and then disappearing into the maw of 'songs picked up by Djs that never made it.'

Of course, we all know that Love is a Stranger was a big hit for Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart. But I've just been watching a YouTube thingie about Eurythmics and Tourists, and it turns out that Love is a Stranger was first released in 1982 and then again in 1983 when it was a hit.

I was at college in 1980. There's no way I could have heard that song on the radio then, it wasn't even written. I wondered if I'd been thinking of Sweet Dreams are Made of This, but that didn't come out until 1983 either. Yet I would absolutely have SWORN that I heard Love is a Stranger on that stereo in that house in 1980.
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Different bed, different man, same song?
 
Floyd said:
Different bed, different man, same song?
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I was still with that same man when 1983 rolled around, but it's the fact that the image of us lying on the sofa in the living room with the stereo going is just so strong. I may be confusing it with a different song, perhaps, but for forty years I've been remembering that image and that song. Just goes to show that it doesn't have to be paranormal, the human brain can mess up in non-supernatural ways and make you doubt yourself.
 
I’m not convinced this is a false memory, I think the internet is screwing with me. I’m in my late 40s and can’t remember London/South East ever having a white Christmas. According to the internet it did in the 1990s I don’t remember that at all. Have I forgotten or is the internet leading me up the garden path?
 
Looking at photos i took on a railway station yesterday, I spotted these two phone boxes.

This is a place i know well and to my knowledge there has only ever been one box there.

The female public toilets are next to the phone box(es) so I often direct strangers there - 'Look for the phone box!'

So either a second phone box has been sneaked in while I wasn't looking or there have always been two and I haven't noticed. :thought:
 

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MorningAngel said:
I’m not convinced this is a false memory, I think the internet is screwing with me. I’m in my late 40s and can’t remember London/South East ever having a white Christmas. According to the internet it did in the 1990s I don’t remember that at all. Have I forgotten or is the internet leading me up the garden path?
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Bearing in mind that it only requires one snowflake to fall for it to be considered a white Christmas, it's quite conceivable that you missed it.
 
escargot said:
Looking at photos i took on a railway station yesterday, I spotted these two phone boxes.

This is a place i know well and to my knowledge there has only ever been one box there.

The female public toilets are next to the phone box(es) so I often direct strangers there - 'Look for the phone box!'

So either a second phone box has been sneaked in while I wasn't looking or there have always been two and I haven't noticed. :thought:
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Which platform?
 
MorningAngel said:
I’m not convinced this is a false memory, I think the internet is screwing with me. I’m in my late 40s and can’t remember London/South East ever having a white Christmas. According to the internet it did in the 1990s I don’t remember that at all. Have I forgotten or is the internet leading me up the garden path?
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Was there not a White Christmas in 2010? That was the year it snowed almost everywhere almost every day from the end of November until just after Christmas and the whole country came to a standstill because of the Beast from the East.
 
catseye said:
Was there not a White Christmas in 2010? That was the year it snowed almost everywhere almost every day from the end of November until just after Christmas and the whole country came to a standstill because of the Beast from the East.
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2009 was bad as well.
 
Well it was the winter of 2009 into 2010, so sort of covered both years.

Hang on... No it was definitely 2010 I'm thinking of because I had a big birthday and people couldn't come to celebrate with me because we were snowed in. 2009 wasn't as universally dreadful, we had snow but it didn't bring everything to a standstill up here, it was more cold.
 
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I thought the Beast from the East was a lot later. I associate it with early 2017. I had just moved into my current flat which had a very different character from the last one. I was miserable and couldn't keep it warm as I hadn't worked out what sort of heating the flat liked yet. The snow went on into April.

Maybe people were using the phrase a lot earlier for other Beasts and I was unaware.
 
catseye said:
Was there not a White Christmas in 2010? That was the year it snowed almost everywhere almost every day from the end of November until just after Christmas and the whole country came to a standstill because of the Beast from the East.
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No I really don’t remember it. It was probably everywhere apart from the South East, we always tend to be warmer.

The one flake thing is confusing when you look it up. But I swear I have never seen a white Christmas.
 
MorningAngel said:
No I really don’t remember it. It was probably everywhere apart from the South East, we always tend to be warmer.

The one flake thing is confusing when you look it up. But I swear I have never seen a white Christmas.
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It's quite difficult to track but Heathrow and Gatwick were both closed around the middle of December 2010, so it looks as though this was the year when the bad weather really hit London.
 
catseye said:
It's quite difficult to track but Heathrow and Gatwick were both closed around the middle of December 2010, so it looks as though this was the year when the bad weather really hit London.
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It usually just misses. Like last year I think it snowed December the 1st and the year before it snowed when I was going for my Christmas meal with work but it was gone by the end of the month.

Edit; picture 12/12/22
 

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staticgirl said:
I thought the Beast from the East was a lot later. I associate it with early 2017. I had just moved into my current flat which had a very different character from the last one. I was miserable and couldn't keep it warm as I hadn't worked out what sort of heating the flat liked yet. The snow went on into April.
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February 2018.
 
No I definitely know there wasn’t a white Christmas here in 2009. We would mostly cook the dinner, (with just a warm up needed the other end) then take to over to my Grandpa. The last Christmas he was alive I remember we turned up and him and his new Polish wife (he was Polish too) - who didn’t understand English when it suited her. Had not long eaten breakfast and were just going to go for a walk as we stood there with cooling turkey. I definitely would remembered if snow was added (mum hates driving in snow) and it might have put her of that bl**dy walk!
 
I remember Christmas 2010 there was snow everywhere, it was my last Christmas in Maidenhead and the first my brother had his current house.

I do remember some snow in January 2010 when I was working in Bristol and I had to stay down there one weekend.

Up until I bought my house in 2012 is did move around a lot.
 
I’ve got a feeling the 2010 snow didn’t make it this far not at Christmas anyway. I think I vaguely remember muttering that the rest of the country had it.
 
This is the best weather analysis I could find for that period.

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/binari...w-temperatures-december-2010---met-office.pdf

'Figure 7: A satellite image of lying snow covering Great Britain and Ireland on Friday 24 December 2010,
Christmas Eve, showing lying snow almost completely covering the UK, with the exception of a few areas (e.g.
Isle of Wight and the far south-west of Cornwall).
 
My area looks like it’s under cloud. But it does look like it may have missed it.
 

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