"I remember the first time I remembered a smell. This was remembering to the extent that it stopped me in my tracks, taking me back to a specific moment, a specific place and a specific feeling. The smell was that of a bike shop. Mainly rubber, with notes of oil and plastic and a strong hint of sheer excitement. In that instant I was about 10 years old, in Bache Brothers Cycles at Lye Cross, near Stourbridge, in the West Midlands."
"As my wisest Welsh friends have explained it to me, the verb in question, clywed, means to feel or to sense, as in sensing/feeling the smell or the sound of something. And also occasionally its touch or taste. So, every sense but sight. If sight was included, it would work perfectly for me in that bike shop, because I can see it all in HD."
A childhood memory centers on a bike-shop smell — mainly rubber, with oil, plastic and a strong sense of excitement — which evokes a vivid, specific moment at age ten in Bache Brothers Cycles at Lye Cross. The memory includes multisensory detail: sight in HD, tactile feeling of the shop man's grip, and his remark to the grandad. A Welsh verb, clywed, can mean to feel or sense sound and smell and occasionally touch or taste, encompassing every sense but sight. English lacks a verb to express smelling something pleasant and has many verbs for bad smells (stinks, pongs, reeks).
Read at www.theguardian.com
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