Can you imagine fifty people in your house? It's no more than a big party, or an omnibus of strangers.
Now for our thought experiment, imagine they each live to be, let's say, 70.
Now put them together, not in your house, but in time, back to back. Fifty times seventy is 3500. Broadly speaking it takes just 50 people to go back (approximately) 3500 years. Before Christianity, before Rome, even before Stonehenge. Put them back in your house and the guy who was around when Jesus was is just over there, sitting on the stairs. You can probably wave to him and be seen, and he'll hear you if you shout.
So there's a thing of no worth to cheer you up.
Anyway, I thought about what was happening in the world in my birth year, my father's, and my grandfather's. Just three people.
Here's some "headlines" from our birth years (all Wikipedia, Google "XXXX uk headlines".
All makes me feel old, and yet incredibly close to stuff that seems on the face of it to be like ancient history today. I knew both of these people, I remember them and talked to them. They were born into a world where these things were new and happening.
What are your headlines?
Me, 1962:
The first album on which The Beatles play, My Bonnie, is released by Polydor.
Opinion polls show that less than half of voters now approve of Harold Macmillan as Prime Minister.
Ford launches the Cortina, a family saloon costing £573 and similar in size to the Vauxhall Victor, Hillman Minx and Morris Oxford Farina
1927, my father:
First transatlantic telephone call from New York City to London
The Royal and Parliamentary Titles Act renames the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The change acknowledges that the Irish Free State is no longer part of the Kingdom.
Treaty of Jeddah: Saudi Arabia becomes independent of the United Kingdom.
1888, my grandfather:
Whitechapel murders: the body of London prostitute Martha Tabram is found, a possible victim of Jack the Ripper
Joseph Assheton Fincher files a patent for the parlour game which he calls "Tiddledy-Winks"
John Boyd Dunlop patents the pneumatic bicycle tyre
Last edited by: Crankcase on Thu 2 Jan 20 at 20:13
|
Back in time; a long muse new
Back in time; a long muse new
