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Short reflection on the mutability of memory: Ballard remembers the film adaptation of Empire of the Sun, itself a memory of his novel, a remembrance of his youth.

Actors of another kind play out our memories, performing on a stage inside our heads whenever we think of childhood, our first day at school, courtship and marriage. The longer we live - and it's now 60 years since I reluctantly walked out of Lunghua camp - the more our repertory company emerges from the shadows and moves to the front of the stage.