The Age of Communications

As a very small boy I would lay awake for such a long time at night; unable to sleep or, even, get comfortable.

Sometimes, in the dead of night, I would walk around the village in the pitch dark just listening to the sounds all around me.

We lived in the depths of the country. That village is not in the depths of the country any more; it has become a small urban environment full of retired people from all over Great Britain. In those days most of the population were people who had been there for generations but that ended with the ‘transport age’. Now they are, for the most part, gone. They cannot afford to live there any more. The influx of retirees with large disposable income saw the end of the village and its particular ethos.

Now, when I go back, I am a stranger. Unrecognised even by the odd few original inhabitants that remain. I have become, essentially, a stateless person.

The place that I call home now is a tropical country; it is warm and humid, full of wonderful food and drinks, full of friendly people and full of peace.

All this came about because of communication. Because of transportation—the ability to move people around.

In my childhood the milkman came around with the bottles of milk that had been produced on the local farm. A horse and cart transported him, and the milk. The postman had a bicycle, only the grocer had a car to make deliveries.

There was only one other car in the village until my Uncle Alex rolled up with an old Standard 10 that gave way to an E-Type Morris (the Morris 8). If you wanted some form of motorised transport there was only a tractor.

So we walked.

Everywhere.

Ultimately, of course, I built a bicycle out of scrap parts until I was bought a ‘Triumph Palm Beach’ touring bicycle that had gears. Luxury.

Now consider this.

To get to the local town two miles away we caught a bus. The bigger town was eight miles away where eventually I should go to school.

Walking took us around the village or, on a fine weekend, we might walk down the riverbank to the small town two miles away. That was the limit of our travel.

We explored the woods and fields around us, we went along the riverbank north and then south to the sea; our radius was around two miles.

My Great Granddad would finish work at lunch time on Saturday, get washed and changed and then walk eight miles to the big town to the East to go dancing. After the dance he would walk eight miles home and go to church Sunday morning. Walking eight miles was nothing even though it was over a large hill.

That was his radius.

For hundreds—perhaps thousands, of years, the radius of experience for anyone was around five to ten miles. Because that is all they could walk in a reasonable time considering work the next day.

Nobody had much time off in those days. You were a serf or an indentured servant of the land (thanks to those Normans who were, really, Vikings!).

Only the rich and landed people had horses. Having a horse then was like having a Rolls-Royce or a Bentley now. Their radius of experience was larger, they could ride to visit friends farther afield.

The bicycle and freedom helped to spread people out a bit but, by and large, you met people who were in your own village or villages very close to you.

Like married like and were friends with people who were like themselves.

Villages, small towns—even cities, were places where people were mentally ingrown. People were, largely, negative and ‘knew their place’ because that is what had been ingrained into them for centuries.

Along came motorcars and trains. The aristocracy and the nouveau riche now had a problem. How to keep the peasant on the estates where they belonged? People were spreading out. Their radius of experience, of knowledge, was growing. People gradually became aware of a bigger World out there. Out beyond the horizon was a new life, a life full of possibilities.

Now you didn’t have to join the army and be moved around en masse to go to far away places. Usually those far away places involved pain and death because you went there to fight a war.

Peasants are accustomed to dying; they can be used as cannon fodder. The First World War proved that.

Trouble there was that it wasn’t just peasants who were doing all the dying. Real people were dying, too; people who had titles and rank.

With them died the notion that the serfs couldn’t go where they wanted to go. Suddenly everyone could travel because the means to do it was there.

That travel was still relatively local in nature but it was further than their fathers and grandfathers had ever been. Now the factory worker could dream of a holiday in Blackpool and Clacton.

The beach resorts of Blackpool and Clacton thrived. Great Yarmouth became a centre of wonderful pleasures for the working class every year. The better people went south to Devon and Cornwall or north to the shooting lodges of Scotland. Places where the common man was not.

The Second World War blew up in the Gentry’s faces. The workingman started thinking of Europe. He had been there to kill other soldiers now he wanted to take his family there and show them where he had been.

He could. There were ferries and cheap trains. Lodgings were available at reasonable prices.

The radius of experience for the workingman was expanding.

Travelling to really far away places was limited to the rich and famous. If you wanted to go to America or Canada you went by boat but even that was not cheap. Aircraft had piston engines that were unreliable and expensive to maintain and run.

Then came the De Havilland Comet.

Aaaah! De Havilland!

The first ever jet airliner.

Suddenly airfares started to fall. Suddenly it was possible to get a package tour to Spain and Italy. The crowds at Blackpool, Clacton and Great Yarmouth began to diminish to the faithful few; those who went there because that’s where they always went. Every year.

Clubs opened up, courtesy of travel firms that offered under thirties the opportunity to go for sea, sand, sun and sex on the beaches of Spain and North Africa.

People went to Teneriffe and Greece. Some went to Egypt. Their experience and knowledge was widening.

The Air Force sent me all over the World including Africa and the Far East.

My radius of experience was now global.

I had tasted what was ‘out there’, I had sampled life in other climates and cultures. I liked it.

Twenty years ago I made the decision to move away from the cold, uninviting place where I had been living and go to somewhere warmer.

Now I’m here and my radius of experience is shrinking but the memories are still there—in my head.

I remember the nights walking around the village in the dark hearing someone that I thought was mowing the lawn but turned out to be snoring and then I remember having a magnificent fish curry and rice tonight.

In between there are sixty years of memories and experiences. They come courtesy of something that my Great Grandfather never had—communication. The ability to travel beyond his horizon. They come courtesy of technology that gave us the jet engine that leaves horizons behind us.

Those memories and experiences are where the stories come from.