The 63-year-old has total recall of experiences he had before he could even walk.
"The very first thing I remember is crawling down the passage way, towards the lounge. There was a pot plant with one flower on it. I picked the flower off and stuck it in my mouth.
"My mother picked me up, put me over her shoulder and gave me a wee tap on the bum. I remember that because I was in nappies at the time."
A phenomenon called childhood amnesia means most adults can't recall events that took place before they were 3 or 4 years old.
While some people can remember what happened at an earlier age, the veracity of their memories is often questioned.
Now, a new longitudinal study by University of Otago department of psychology researchers has found events experienced by children as young as two, can be recalled.
Study lead author Dr Fiona Jack said the initial research in 2000 involved about 50 children aged 2-4 and their parents, playing a game to determine what age their earliest memories occur.
In the game, children placed a large object in a hole at the top of a "Magic Shrinking Machine" and turned a handle on the side.
When a bell rang, a smaller but otherwise identical object was delivered through a door at the bottom of the machine.
Six years later, the researchers interviewed the children and their parents, to determine how well they remembered the game.
Dr Jack said about a fifth of the children recalled the event, including two children who were under 3-years-old when they played the game.
About half the parents remembered the event.
Parents and children who recalled the event provided very similar reports about the game, she said.
The research endorses people like Mr Middleditch (not involved with the research) who are treated with suspicion when they recall events from their early childhood.
"Although we couldn't predict children's long-term recall on the basis of their general memory and language skills, we found some evidence that talking about the event soon after it occurred, may have helped preserve it in the memories of those who remembered it," she said.
"Our results are consistent with theories that suggest that basic capacity for remembering our own experiences may be in place by two years of age."
Dr Jack said the study had implications in clinical and legal settings, where it was often important to know how likely it was that a particular memory of an early experience was genuine.
However, the factors that determine whether a child will recall any particular event, remain elusive, she said.
The research appears in the United States journal Child Development and was funded by Marsden Grants from the Royal Society of New Zealand, and the New Zealand Science and Technology Postdoctoral Fellowship Scheme.
