Memory and the sense of smell

• Fifth Sense website
  

Back in 1960 I was registered as a student in France and was able to go on a tour round Spain with a group of French students. Setting out from Bayonne, we visited Burgos, Madrid, Cordova, Granada, Malaga, Ronda, Gibraltar, Seville, Salamanca and many other places in between.

The coach driver was a likeable man very skilled in driving on inadequate roads - this was a couple of decades after the Civil War and Spain was still recovering from it and was clearly a very poor country. He was always careful to park the coach in a shady spot, as this was the hottest part of the year - I noticed it was 35˚C at 8.30 in the evening in Seville. However, one day he could find no shade and when we returned to the coach, very hot air met us when we opened the door. I was one of two youngsters who volunteered to go inside and open up all the windows. The metal catch of the first window I tried was so hot that I had to use my handkerchief to operate it. We soon got the temperature down to a bearable level and resumed our journey. The upholstery on the seats was made with artificial leather and, because of the heat, was giving off a strong distinctive smell.

Some years later I was on a coach trip here in England. It was a very hot day and the coach had to be left in the sun. When we returned to it, the air inside was very hot and the upholstery, made from the same material, was giving off that same smell. Vivid memories of my tour round Spain came flooding back into my mind. It was some years later again that I heard an item on the radio about the connection between the sense of smell and the memory. The descriptions I heard on that programme rang true. Since then I have had a few similar experiences - for example, the smell of bottom-fermenting beer which pervades cafés in Belgium has always reminded me of my days in Strasbourg - but never so vivid as that first one.

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Posted September 2017.