Some people losing dem memory

Sep 08, 2026 Dem Boys Seh, Features / Columnists

(Kaieteur News) – Deh had a time when Guyana had a man who could remember almost anything, especially when it come to dates. Dem boys talking about Sydney Gonsalves, the legendary “Memory Man.”

Only the older generation might remember Sydney today. But dem who remember him could never forget the spectacle of this simple-looking man producing dates with the precision of a bank teller balancing his till at the end of the day.

Sydney was born on Saturday, October 4, 1930, at exactly 9:22 in the morning at Belfield Railway, where his father was station master. And that “exactly” is important, because Sydney didn’t just remember that he was born in October. He remembered the day, the date and the time. If you ask most people today when they were born, dem boys suspect some would have to call their mother.

According to a report in de Stabroek News, his mother apparently wanted to send him to Queen’s College but thought he looked too stupid to benefit from the education. Little did she know that the boy would grow up and develop a memory that could put a computer to shame.

But dem boys wonder if Sydney was alive today, how he would cope with modern Guyana. Ask somebody now what happened last week and you might get, “Boss, I ain’t sure. Check Facebook.” Ask what day something happened and the answer might be, “It was sometime around Wednesday… or Thursday.”

And breakfast is another problem.

There are people today who cannot remember what they had for breakfast this morning, much less what they ate yesterday. Yet Sydney could tell you what happened on a particular day seventy years earlier. He even remembered being thrown out of the house by his mother in 1946 after cuffing his sister for waking him too early on Sunday morning. Dem boys seh Sydney didn’t need Google. Sydney was Google before Google know it had a job.

And today, when people say, “I can’t remember,” dem boys could only wish Sydney was around to remember for them.

Talk half. Leff half.

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Dem Boys Seh, memory, Memory Man, Sydney Gonsalves

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