Face to Face With History

[Hill Wimp]

I live on an old airfield in Kent. Planes flew from here in the Battle of Britain and during WW2 helping to destroy the doodlebugs, the V1 menace that reigned terror over the south coast. Near to our community centre we have a bronze memorial of a running airman where the remembrance services are held.

Sometimes when i get back from work late i walk past this memorial and many times in the early hours i have stood there trying to imagine them all running to their planes filled with a mixture of fear and adrenalin. I can almost hear the engines starting up sometimes.

 

[PaulB]

My eldest is studying the Holocaust this term and the school organized a meeting with Mala , a 89 year old polish lady who survived the genocide. Parents had a separate meeting . Obviously her story was harrowing , and has left a massive impression on me. Have any of you had a meeting with some one who lived through history?

We once had a patient who'd suffered decades of physical and emotional trauma at the hands of the Japanese on the Burma railways. What a particularly sadistic bastard had done, to punish him for a tiny error was to stick a knife down his urethra and tear it down and out and as a young man, still a virgin, this was to have a terrible effect on him for a long time. But as it turned out, he needn't have suffered! He was told by his pals to consider himself lucky that he survived and got to come home so he got on with it but felt he'd never get married and was too embarrassed to tell anyone what had happened. Well he had to come in to clinic with prostate problems eventually and my old Urology colleague took one look at the mess the Japanese had caused and told the poor man he'd sort him out no worries. During his treatment for his prostate, a bit of plumbing was done on the 'exterior', a bit of reconstruction around the pipework, a stitch here and a snip there and all looked like new! He was told to keep it under wraps for a couple of weeks but then to unleash it and report back. So he did. And he came with his betrothed and we weren't entirely sure who was happiest!

 

[vernon]

Yes, but the changes in our lives have not been as dramatic as they were for them. For us, most of those changes took place when we were kids and as we all know, kids are much more accepting of changes, and as a result changes and new things are not as difficult for us as they would have been
for them.

I disagree totally.

All of the changes were awesome for me and my peers especially when many of them were out of reach in terms of aspirations and affordability. A home telephone elevated a family to the peerage and a colour television gave access to royalty.

Changes nowadays are incremental rather than world changing and yes kids today are immune to them because the fantasy world that they inhabit via online games and films dulls their appreciation of innovation.

 

[welsh dragon]

Being able to have these things in your home for the first time may have been momumental, but the point I am trying to make is that we knew they existed and we knew about them as opposed to our predecessors who didn't. Can you imagine what it was like for a middle aged person to suddenly be confronted with a television where non existed before. And to go from biplanes and zeplins to jet engines?

Yes a lot of things have come into existence during our, life, but they have taken place for the most part while we were children and were much more accepting than older people.

 

[Hill Wimp]

Being able to have these things in your home for the first time may have been momumental, but the point I am trying to make is that we knew they existed and we knew about them as opposed to our predecessors who didn't. Can you imagine what it was like for a middle aged person to suddenly be confronted with a television where non existed before. And to go from biplanes and zeplins to jet engines?

Yes a lot of things have come into existence during our, life, but they have taken place for the most part while we were children and were much more accepting than older people.

Sorry i totally disagree.

Things are changing every single day as we grow older they don't just change when we are children. Never would i have ever believed a bank could crash and look what happened in 2008, who would ever have believed someone would fly two planes into the twin towers.

History is happening now.

 

[welsh dragon]

[QUOTE 2953200, member: 259"]I don't know if you have a family experience like this, WelshDragon, but I have had more than one Welsh friend whose parents were caned at school for speaking Welsh![/quote]

I remember being at school and being made to kneel in front of the class because I didn't know the answer to a question and having the teacher grab hold of my pony tail and pull as hard as she could. And I was given the cane more than once. And my mother had her hand tied behind her back because she was left handed. These are stories that kids today could not comprehend or understand.

 

[welsh dragon]

I was talking about inventions rather than things like the twin towers. Of course history is happening every day and we are part of that.

 

[Hill Wimp]

So what about Ipads, smart TVs etc these have all happened whilst i have been an adult and i would never have believed them when i was a child.

Technology evolves daily too. We didn't go from the bi plane to concorde, planes developed over time like everything else.

 

[welsh dragon]

So what about Ipads, smart TVs etc these have all happened whilst i have been an adult and i would never have believed them when i was a child.

Technology evolves daily too. We didn't go from the bi plane to concorde, planes developed over time like everything else.

Im not disputing that, what I am saying is it must have been even more traumatic to see these things for the first time. As you say technology has evolved, the first computer was called colossus and was the size of a house, but over time it has evolved from the 40's to the wonderful gizmos and gadgets that we have today. I think we will have to agree to disagree

 

[L14M]

If i could go back in time i'd go back to 1951, become an airline pilot.
Living in world thats mostly art deco, being a pioneer in aviation.. Yep i'd love that.

 

[gbb]

Mine are not earth shattering but memorable to me...
Grandad fought in WW1, gassed in France, fought at Gallipoli etc etc. I always thought it must have been earth shattering for them, before I even read Catastrophe, Europe Goes To War by Max Hastings, it tells how fast we entered the war, people were tending fields in early autumn, to fighting in France one month later. What a shock it must have been..total admiration, respect, sorrow and awe for them .

I also knew a member of the Hitler Youth. Hed been born in what became east germany, left for america after the war joined the USAF, tthey found out some year later he'd been a Hitler Youth and it caused huge ructions..but as he said, you had NO choice. He later came to the UK..I called him an Anglo American German

I sometimes wonder if the younger generation have become jaded so they dont recognise important stuff..my colleague is 20 and when I talk about things that have happened In my lifetime, he seems surprised, hes not seen anything that interesting, it seems to him all the good stuff happened and life now is just mundane.

 

[welsh dragon]

My uncle fought in Burma during the 2nd world war. He would never talk about it.

 

[Peteaud]

From yesterdays bike ride.

I wonder what Susan, who passed away on Christmas day 1857, aged just 41, would have thought if she could have known that 157 years after her death, a complete stranger dressed in lycrra, riding a bicycle with titanium and Carbon fibre parts would point a small plastic box at her gravestone and a few hours later the entire www could see it?

 

[Mad Doug Biker]

I was talking about inventions rather than things like the twin towers. Of course history is happening every day and we are part of that.

But the original post included historical events too, so all is valid.

Could you have imagined even a few years ago having a black President Of The U.S.A for example??

So what about Ipads, smart TVs etc these have all happened whilst i have been an adult and i would never have believed them when i was a child.

Even a few years ago, could you imagine having an iPad/iPhone??

Technology evolves daily too. We didn't go from the bi plane to concorde, planes developed over time like everything else.

Indeed.

TV was mentioned..... Well, there was Cinema before, so it wouldn't have been a massive surprise, in fact, Cinema probably had a far more profound invention, but even then, there were moving cartoons/pictures at the Seaside Amusement halls..... And then there was photopgraphy which must have been massive.... But then there paintings and drawings, and printing and and and..... Where do you draw the line?

Electricity was the same, yes it must have been massive, but there was gas lighting before then, and candles/fire before.... And even for power, there were steam engines, and before then, water...... And wind..... And horses.... And....

You get the jist.

If i could go back in time i'd go back to 1951, become an airline pilot.
Living in world thats mostly art deco, being a pioneer in aviation.. Yep i'd love that.

Just avoid those Comets with the metal fatigue....

 

[Roadrider48]

I'd go back in time to when we could all speak our minds without the fear of upsetting some peanut or two!