LOSS OF MEMORY

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXXI, Issue 4952, 6 February 1937, Page 2

LOSS OF MEMORY

SYDNEY YOUTH’S EXPERIENCE/ UNCONSCIOUS OF LONG JOURNEY Sydney, January 26. A remarkable case of temporary los* of memory is that of Ray Cooper, 18, a Sydney youth. He was walking along a city street, on his way home from work one evening; the next morning he found himself sitting beside a road three miles from Gloucester, which is 192 miles from Sydney. Cooper told this strange story to the police, his parents, and a doctor, without being able to offer any explanation for it. Questioning showed that there was a gap in his memory from 5 p.m. one day until 6 a.m. the next. During that time, apparently as the result of amnesia, he travelled nearly 200 miles from Sydney and performed various actions normally foreign to his nature. Cooper, a sturdy, well-built youth, gave a remarkable account of his experience. “I don’t know what happened to me,” he said. “There was nothing wrong, and I felt well. I

remember being on my way home from work. I don’t remember any more about that. The next thing I knew I was somewhere else. I didn’t know where it was, but it was obviously in the country. I was sitting on a log, looking at a sigripost. I felt well, but my legs were tired, and I was very hungry. There was some fruit in a paper bag beside me, so I ate that.” Cooper told his story to a police sergeant at Gloucester. Of £2 in his pockets the previous evening, little remained. He had handed in a ticket at the Gloucester railway station, and the stationmaster remembered having seen him leave the station and walk along the road that morning. The sergeant lent him money to return home.

Immediately Cooper returned to his home his father took him to a doctor, who said that the youth was in perfect physical health. The doctor stated that loss of memory was unlikely to happen again.