Time to take a trip down memory lane, and don't worry about exaggerating - Ian McMillan

She seemed genuinely interested and so, given the fairly short time that the journey actually took, I started to elaborate and slightly embroider the tales.

I showed her the hill where I’d kicked a big pile of snow when I was seven, not realising there was a huge bit of concrete underneath it and I broke my leg and my auntie had to carry me home.

I made quite a lot of anecdotal material out of the bend in the road where the mobile pie and pea man used to slow down on a Saturday just before he leaned out his van window to ring the handbell that told you the pies and the peas were here.

I told the tale of the football field where somebody shouted: “Watch that ball, young ’un!” and I literally watched the ball fly into my face.

By this time, I was at home and she was dropping me off but I found that I was still talking about the route through my childhood and indeed I was still talking about it as she got fed up of listening and drove away, my voice mingling with her car’s engine as it rumbled up the street.

I walked into the house and was seized by a sudden urge to eat pie and peas served by a bloke from a van with steamed up windows.

Memories of childhood and young adulthood can take on epic and almost mythical proportions when you start to articulate them to people who’ve never heard them before.

Who really cares that that’s the school I went to, and that’s the house I lived in as a newlywed? Well, nobody except me and everybody including me, I guess.

What I mean by that is that I believe that everybody’s memories are worth sharing, and indeed memory is the basis of lots of the writing workshops I’ve run over the years.

I ask people to talk about their memories and then, after a bit of reluctance because they always think their memories aren’t worth sharing, the stories and the poems and the jokes come tumbling out and before you know it it’s time for the tea break.

Sometimes, of course, people exaggerate their memories. Maybe the pie and pea man’s bell wasn’t as loud as I remember and perhaps my auntie didn’t sing The Old Rugged Cross when she carried me home with my broken leg. But maybe she did, and The Old Rugged Cross certainly makes a good addition to the tale.

Maybe it’s time to write your memories down, whoever you are, and wherever you’re reading this.

Imagine that you’re describing your childhood landscapes to somebody who knows nothing about them, as I did when I got that lift home.

Start with your old school and maybe make a list of the teachers. Think about your favourite lesson, your least favourite lesson. Think about pies and peas if you like: there’s usually a memory somewhere in pies and peas.

Enjoy it: and don’t worry about exaggerating. I do it all the time, 25 hours a day.