I find that smells can transport me back in time more powerfully than any other sense. The smell of road tar takes me back at once to my home village where the village steamroller used to be parked next to the White Hart pub and opposite the canal lock pond where it could get liquid for the boiler and beer for the driver. It's number plate was AA11. The smell of boiling soap suds takes me back to the little kitchen when I was a child, with mum, red-faced from the steam, dragging the wet washing out of the copper and hauling it outside where it was put through the mangle, the soapy water collected in a big enamel bath to be returned to the copper. Dinner on wash day was always cold meat with boiled potatoes and beetroot. Long bars of washing soap were stored on a high shelf to harden in order to make them last longer before being cut in squares for use . What are your most potent smell memories?
