A while ago I received a letter from Susie. When we were very young and she was Susan, we were in the same class at primary school. I rang her at the gallery she was running in northern New South Wales, to thank her for the letter, to say hello and to ask her a question.

Susan had been in a memory of mine for 60 years and I’d always wondered whether the memory was accurate or whether I’d edited it anecdotally over the years to the point where, like Captain Cook’s axe, it had six new heads and nine new handles and no longer bore any resemblance to Captain Cook’s actual axe.