Hutchinson, George- YOUR MEMORY TEST

[Fisherman]

Sarah Lee:

"It's just occurred to me that last week was a Bank Holiday, so the rubbish collection was actually a day later on Tuesday.
If I'd suspected Mike of doing something nefarious I would have had no hesitation in giving a statement to the police, secure in my "knowledge" that it was Monday evening that I'd witnessed his unusual behaviour. And if the day of bin collection wasn't so easily proven, I'd have been completely confident in my recollection!!!"

And thatīs how it goes! This sort of mistake is so trivial, and it happens to most of us every now and then. And if we add a vagabonding lifestyle and sleep deprivation to the mix, it does absolutely nothing to help us in our recollections.

Itīs good, Sarah, to have you showing just how common and undramatic a thing this is, for when I say so, I always get the reaction that it would have been something extremely exotic and totally out of the ordinary. What your example further shows us, is that the detail of a Bank Holiday, something out of the ordinary, did not guarantee a correct assessment at all.

All the best,
Fisherman

[Sally]

Fish

You will vividly remember the crash because of itīs significance, but the significance does not lie in which day of the week it happened.

If you agree with this, then that will be a very significant thing. But will that significance manifest itself in your remembering that we actually agreed on something - or in your recalling that it happened on a Friday? And will you remember what you have for lunch today more accurately because of our agreement? I think not. You may disagree, though, and casually forget that you did so on a Friday ...

My agreeing with you is not so significant - I do sometimes, even if not so often regarding Hutchinson! But thank you for another amusing and eloquent post.

Now then -

Does the significance lie in which day of the week an event occurs? I think technically, no, the significance lies in the event itself.

But, I still contend that we are more likely to remember the day on which the event occurred simply because it occurred in the first place.

In the case of Hutchinson, your requirements are that he is wrong about which night he walked back from Romford. This in itself has nothing to do with Kelly. Why should he forget the day? Its a long walk. We don't know if his going to Romford was unusual or not. It could have been a one-off, in which case why wouldn't he have been able to fix the day? He might have gone down every Thursday. If that was the case (hypothetically) we wouldn't expect him to mistake the day, would we? There are too many unknowns, I think, for us to make any assumptions there.

As has already been pointed out, there is also a continuous narrative provided by Hutchinson from his going to Romford, walking back, meeting Kelly, seeing Astrocan Man, and returning to his lodgings the next morning. So we are not just asking for him to have mistaken the day on which he went to Romford, but also the night he was unable to go to his lodgings, and the morning on which he returned.

On top of that, we are also asking him to have been unaware of the Friday being the Lord Mayor's Show and unaware that his long term friend Kelly had become the latest victim of the Whitechapel Fiend.

I see what you're saying, Fish, I do - and yes, I'm sure people mistake the day all the time. If I have a boring week at work I'm sure I don't always remember on which day I had a conversation with a colleague, or when I wrote a report, etc.

But I think there is a big difference between the ordinary and the extraordinary; and my view, from my own experience - which is all I have - is that the extraordinary stands out a good deal more.

[Fisherman]

Sally:

"I still contend that we are more likely to remember the day on which the event occurred simply because it occurred in the first place."

I donīt disagree. An important event will probably - to varying degrees - "rub off" in this manner.

"In the case of Hutchinson, your requirements are that he is wrong about which night he walked back from Romford. This in itself has nothing to do with Kelly. "

Spot on.

"Why should he forget the day? Its a long walk."

We donīt know that he cared about what day it was at all. If he did not go down there in a specific errand, knit to a specific day (in which case he could STILL have gone the wrong day!), then who can say what importance he attached to the weekday as such? If any day would do for that walk (perhaps to look for job), then any day it was.

"there is also a continuous narrative provided by Hutchinson from his going to Romford, walking back, meeting Kelly, seeing Astrocan Man, and returning to his lodgings the next morning."

Yes, indeed. But if he faultily became convinced that it was a Thursday/Friday experience, then he would sort things in under that same umbrella unless something surfaced that told him that he was wrong.

"we are also asking him to have been unaware of the Friday being the Lord Mayor's Show and unaware that his long term friend Kelly had become the latest victim of the Whitechapel Fiend. "

Yes - and this is where your argument takes a little more flight. As such, I think that the reasonable thing to argue is that if he had heard about the murder on Friday noon, then it would not be as reasonable to suggest that he mixed up the days. Which is why I think that he probably did NOT hear about it until some time after - time enough to create a window for doing the mistake I think he did.

Letīs also not forget that he was three days late in coming forward, and that in itself seems to point to him not having had the opportunity - or knowledge - to come forward immediately. If he was an honest man, with intentions to help, then he would reasonably have gone to the police on Friday noon IF he had been in the know. But he did not. So we are left with the two opportunities that he was either not honest, or he WAS honest and had some sort of useful reason for his delay. And yes, we have implications in the press (but not in police reports) saying that there was a reluctance to accept the delay - but that may have been speculations (reasonable ones) by journalists, or a smokescreen provided by an embarrassed police force, unwilling to give away that they had not been able to establish the date-mixing from the outset. And we also have Dew, and he goes to show that the only police that commented on Hutch afterwards, did so believing that Hutch WAS completely honest.

The best,
Fisherman

[Sally]

Hi Fish

An interesting response. I just wanted to pick up on your last point:-

I think that the reasonable thing to argue is that if he had heard about the murder on Friday noon, then it would not be as reasonable to suggest that he mixed up the days. Which is why I think that he probably did NOT hear about it until some time after - time enough to create a window for doing the mistake I think he did.

I agree entirely that this is a logical train of thought - but I have to say I think it unlikely that he wouldn't have heard of it by the end of the Friday at the latest. I think to imagine that the very great majority of Londoners hadn't heard about it by then would be to underestimate the impact and shock of the event.

In order to accommodate his not hearing about the murder until much later I think we have to resort to pure conjecture - which is fine, but that's all it can be.

We've been through this before though!