LOSS OF MEMORY

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 1, 2 January 1937, Page 4

LOSS OF MEMORY

STRANGE CASE IN SYDNEY A MOTORING ACCIDENT ' (From "The Post's" Representative.) SYDNEY, December 21. A remarkable case of amnesia has come under notice here. While relatives were mourning the death of Brenda Quinr., a dressmaker, aged 22, she was found working in a hotel at Maroubra, several miles from where she was last seen. Her mind seemed clouded and she could not recognise her mother and brother. After a swim at Bondi Beach, Miss Quinn left a girl friend, saying that she was going back to the water to wash the sand from her costume. Two hours later she had not returned to the dressing-room, and finding her clothes untouched, the friend reported the disappearance to the police. Miss Quinn's mother was preparing several days later to go into mourning when a friend of the brother brought information that he had seen Brenda working in the Maroubra Hotel. "From the first," said Mr. Quinn, "I was unable to believe that she was drowned. I went to her dressmaking shop and then started to make inquiries. Those in the shop said that for the last few weeks Brenda had seemed to suffer temporary lapses of memory. When my friend told me he had seen Brenda I went by car to the hotel, I knew her at once, but she had no recollection of me. I just picked her up in my arms, took her to the car, and brought her home. It was; of course, a great shock to my mother. Brenda still does not know how she left the beach, and before she went to sleep that night, mentioned several times, 'I want to go back to my job'." It appears that several weeks ago Miss Quinn was in a motor-car which overturned, injuring her and several others. She suffered head injuries, which, it is thought, have caused her state of amnesia. She is now being attended by a specialist. After she left the beach, Miss Quinn, it is believed, wandered until she reached her shop, and there secured two frocks. It is also thought that she applied through an agency for a position, and thus secured work at the hotel. All,the time she was not aware of her real personality. She actually denied her identity to; a man who thought he recognised her as Brenda Quinn, and said that her name was Buckley. -'