![\"David](\"http:\/\/www.bmj.com\/site\/blog\/icons\/davidpayne.jpg\")
I have a good memory. Actually I’m being modest. I have an amazing memory, according to friends and family. 29 June 1974. A Saturday. I was eight. We went on holiday to Hopton-on-Sea. 1 September 1977, a Thursday. My first day at secondary school. There was a girl in my class called Sarah Lowe. She was 12 that day, the oldest child in our year.<\/p>\n
If I met Sarah now I’d tell her I still remembered her birthday, despite having almost nothing to do with her after that first day at school. On second thoughts, probably not. She might find that a bit freaky. Or flattering. I don’t know. <\/p>\n
Aurelien Hayman would understand my situation. In The Boy Who Can’t Forget<\/em><\/a>, shown in the UK on Channel 4 last week, the 20 year old Durham University student recounted a date, the day of the week it fell on, what he ate on that day, what the weather was like, along with snippets from that day’s news.<\/p>\n When Hayman\u2019s brain was scanned by Professor Giuliana Mazzoni, Head of Psychology at Hull University, he was prompted to remember a series of dates. When he did this, a series of “visual areas” lit up, she found.<\/p>\n Aurelien is studying English literature (so did I). I wonder if, like me, he’ll become a journalist, where being able to recall facts and figures while interviewing an evasive politician is a great skill to have.<\/p>\n It also comes in useful when a colleague asks when we ran a particular print issue cover, or the last time we covered a particular topic, although the internet means I’m now asked a lot less frequently.<\/p>\n I have a BMJ<\/em> colleague with a similarly good memory. Like me, he’s gay. So is Aurelian. So is David Tammet<\/a>, who has written about living with high-functioning autism<\/a> and appeared twice in the World Memory Championship. Someone posted a comment in response to the Daily Telegraph<\/em> review of the programme if anyone has explored a link between homosexuality and hyperthymesia (a highly superior autobiographical memory). Then he worried if he sounded homophobic.<\/p>\n A second response to the Telegraph<\/em> review said the ability to recall events in the way Aurelien does is of limited use because an effective memory is surely one that “sorts wheat from chaff.” A third puts it more bluntly: “Surely normal brains dump trivial information on purpose so that we can focus on remembering important things.”<\/p>\n Also, is Aurelien’s “gift” a blessing or a curse? One Daily Mail<\/em> reader<\/a> responded to his story thus: “I’m lucky. I have a bad memory. People with good memories are usually depressed. I, on the other hand, forget most of the bad things, in a short time, that have happened to me.”<\/p>\n Jill Price, an American schools administrator in her 40s, was the first person to be diagnosed with hyperthymesia<\/a>. She also appeared in the documentary.<\/p>\n