[2111]
LIFE THEN, NOW & ?
I have set out, as one of my objectives, to document the changes which have, over the decades, taken place in my life – as an indication of those that have taken place in many other lives in the developed world. In fact, the past half century alone has seen a degree of change which could reasonably be compared with that over the whole of the previous two or three centuries; and the pace is increasing even further, not slowing down. We are now used to such continuing rapid changes. Even so, it would do us no harm to occasionally remind ourselves of what has happened; to put our modern lives into context, and to answer those who hanker after the good old times!
OLD TIMES
Paradoxically, my experience of real old times, those when we existed on the basis of subsistence agriculture, didn’t come to its full fruition until the end of my career – when I worked in Ethiopia.
9115 OU38 - Ethiopia -- Terraforming
(9115T*)
9161 OU29 - Ethiopia -- The New Famine
9156 OU30 - Ethiopia - Guesthouse
0309 Domestic Arrangements
I had, though, seen something like this in my youth when I spent so much time on a welsh hill farm.
0010 Haymaking at the Cottage
(0010T*)
0065 The Cottage
(0065T*)
0004 A Welsh Hill Farm
(0004T*)
PRE-WAR
Before the second world war, when my parents were young – as passed down to me by their oral history which was a major influence on my early life – there seemingly was an eternally sunlit world. But, first of all, there was that darker period experienced by their parents at the end of the Victorian era.
0020 MY GRANDFATHER
(0020T*)-1877-1961, teacher extraordinaire and major influence on me
0038 NANA LANE
(0038T*)- 1895 – 1955, a Yorkshire housewife.
And only then did that sunny period between the wars emerge:
0019
MA LEEDS/LIVERPOOL/BROMBOROUGH POOL
(0019T*) –
Ma's (dictated) description of her christening in Leeds 1921 and then
her move to Liverpool and then Bromborough Pool.
9303 EXTENDED FAMILY
(9303T*) – the Lanes and the
Mercers.
9244 MY FATHER'S FAMILY
9987 GASLIGHT - NANA'S HOUSE, SOUTH VIEW – and life before
electric light
But that happy time was brought to an abrupt end by the second world war, though the family seemed even to have enjoyed that! My uncle’s diary is full of tales of comradeship and my father loved his time in the Home Guard.
2002 SID’S WAR
– the wartime record of my
uncle, which was typical in terms of the impact of the war on the returning
soldiers
9265 THE HOMEGUARD
(9265T*) – the fun time of my father’s life.
My own memories of that time are much more fragmentary:
0059 BIRTH 1940
(0059T*) – my very early years, and the blitz on Merseyside, 1940-1942
0044 EARLY MEMORIES
(0044T*) - 1943 to 1945, wartime life at Croft
Avenue
0017 WAR END
(0017T*)– life in Croft Avenue
POST-WAR
In fact, I do not have any detailed memories before the end of the war. However, until the 1950s, we still suffered the rigours of war time rationing. More important, much of life still remained the same as it had for decades.
0066 Family (0066T*) – a description of family life at that time and especially of the family festival of Christmas.
Towards the end of that time a new style of holiday had developed to meet the needs of the working class families who for the first time now were entitled to holidays.
0054 Butlin's 1
(0054T*) – an important experience, a rite of passage.
0067 Butlins 2 – learning new skills as a barman.
0026 Butlins 3 (0026
T*) – early sales lessons as a bar waiter.
To describe my academic, or political, life at Imperial
College would be to give a misleading picture – where such life was at the
leading edge of the scientific revolution. But my life with Pat was much more
typical, though even then it was, in terms of its new moralities, perhaps a
decade ahead of its time.
0119 Pat at Imperial College
(0119T*)
0132 Imperial College Library
(0132T*)
0124 Sex and Single Man
1960s
Indeed, most of the earth-shattering changes in society did not arrive until this decade. The first signs of this, including the politics of the Profumo scandal, were to be seen while I was at FCB, and continued through the time I was at Gallahers.
0168 FCB Stories
(0168T*)
0139 Peter Bartlett
0161 Gallahers -- social life
0111 Gallahers – training
Then we lived in central London. The pattern of our life changed, however, with the arrival of our children and our move to the suburbs of Slough.
0192 Hampstead and Chelsea (0192T*)
0179 The Royal Court
9284
Our First House, at Chalvey
(9284T*)
The pattern was further distorted as we moved North:
0171 Move to the North
0166 Knutsford
(0166T*)
0109 Burton move
(0109T*)
1970s
With our move back down South, and my joining IBM, we buried ourselves in the typical middle-class suburban culture of the 1970s.
0141 Molesey - the move
(0141T*)
0238 Hurst Park Social Activities
9173 - Entertaining - Parties
9184 – Entertaining 2 – Food
9163 – Entertaining3 – Wine
Thus, we put down roots there – not least in terms of our children’s schooling – which still shape our, and their, lives. Again typical of the milieu, these roots centred around our children, with their school (especially their first school) becoming the focus of our lives.
9266 Hurst Park School
0159 Hurst Park Friends
(0159T*)
0218 Managing Children
(0218T*)
0300 Molesey Secondary Schools
0202 School Exchanges
9988 Girl Guides
1980s
The basic situation was not much changed in the 1980s, when we moved once more.
0296 Move to Basingstoke
9186 Basingstoke 1 - Basingstoke House
(9186T*)
9152 Basingstoke 2 - Basingstoke Life
Though it did then change dramatically when I followed the dream of the time, building my own business. Of course this was, in my case, due to force majeur rather than choice; and ended in disaster.
0261 Setting Up Computerland
9281 Computerland Business Case 1986
0260 Building Computerland
9110 Computerland Brochure 1986
0184 Computerland Sales Force
0269 ComputerLand Salesmen
0290 ComputerLand Systems Support
0222 Computerland - the Road to Bankruptcy
1990s
Our final move, to Milton Keynes in the 1990s, was all about my own move into the culture of the Open University; which – revolving around collegiality – was once more ahead of its time.
9180 OU 1 - Starting at the Open University
9124 OU4 - The OBS Family
(9124T*)
9179 OU14 - Head of Centre -- Strategy and Policy
(9179T*)
Though it was not as far ahead as the web ‘portal’ I – unsuccessfully – tried to set up in order to meet the demands of the new age.
0384 Virgin Portal Proposal
0362 Virgin Portal Proposal Appendix
And, indeed, the style of our private lives once more did not change dramatically.
9170 House Sale Woodley Headland
0205 Local Shopping
0262 Town Shopping
9448 Bungalow
But the shape of things to come, which was the focus of my research – and in particular of my imagination – is spelled out in the two collections contained in:
2018 Futures Research
2023 Future Observatory
Above all, the large number of topics in these represents the uniquely comprehensive database - of several hundred items - which offers predictions across ‘all of human activity’; where this was my final contribution to society in general.
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