Do You Think He Made Stuff Up—How accurate is our history?

Reading back through thirty years of letters, it's perhaps not surprising that some of the events in the letters are now long forgotten by the participants.

 My sister agreed to proof read the book, so I sent her a text file and over the course of a few weeks she would text me little notes on errors or spelling mistakes. Then one day I got the following text:
I have no recollection of the birthday party. Do you think he made stuff up???
I wasn't sure which birthday party she was referring to, but after asking for clarification, I found the story she was talking about:
Monday was Grandma’s birthday and she was thrilled with your call and the flowers. Your aunt Barb was up from Christchurch and cousin Becky arrived on the way back from a week in Auckland so I took them all to Otto’s (at the Overseas Terminal) for a meal. Had a lovely meal with a great highlight; Mum had, as usual, baked a cake and arranged for the restaurant to have it served. They brought it in with all the candles lit and we sang Happy Birthday.
There weren’t that many people there, and in the midst of our not totally tuneful rendition there was a piercing cry from across the room and a rather peroxide blonde bounded over asking who’s birthday it was, her name and age, and proceeded to sing “Today Ethel is 73 and you should all sing with me Happy Birthday Heh Heh Heh” and other scintillating rhymes. Becky tried to disappear under her chair, Angela had slight hysterics, and I must admit we all thought the singer was drunk, but it turned out she was Dutch—same thing? And her business? Singing Telegrams! All quite a hoot!

 I read the piece and had no recollection of anything in the letter that would suggest it was a fantasy, so I replied:
ME: I have no idea. I don’t think he’d make that up. Maybe you weren’t there?
ANGELA: Says I was
ME: I’ll ask tonight!
That night I Skyped with Mum & Dad, and when I asked them, neither remembered the event (though they both remembered another birthday party where half the group arrived on crutches, which is also in the book.) They were, however, both adamant that it must have happened, even if they didn’t remember it. Mum proof-reads the letters before they are sent, so she’d have called foul on any whole-sale departure from reality, unless it was clearly marked as such.

 I sent my sister the following reply (brushing over the fact that they didn't actually remember the particular story!):
ME: They were quite sure that it happened.
ANGELA: But maybe I wasn’t there.
Clearly she wasn't going to give up! We may never know. But I’d take the contemporaneous record over memory…it was 33 years ago!

Amazon: Letters From New Zealand: Farming, Fishing and Golf

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