Can you think of a time when you did not have a television? No I thought not ! That got me thinking about the things that have happened in my lifetime, and some of the things that my Father would never have believed.

He was born at the turn of the century (not this one - the last one), and it was a time when the motorcar was the latest invention, probably only a few hundred in the country at that time. He has long gone now, and I am 71 yrs old, so it suddenly dawned on me that I could look back through my father and myself, more than a Hundred years. Wow! a sobering thought.

What has gone on in that time? Try telling the youth of today that their best form of transport was their legs, and no TV, computer, mobile phones, iPods (or even McDonalds), I am sure they would take a while to digest this, and probably think I was nuts.

Could my father believe that one day a man would land on the Moon? No, I think not, that would have been just to much for him to imagine. But we slowly grow up with these major milestones in our lives, and just don't realise the change that's happening and what speed it's happening.
How far have we come from the first telephone call from America, or the first Radio signal. We now have the Internet that can contact anyone anywhere in the world, at any time. How scary is that.

My childhood was a playtime with a difference, walk to school, no "Mums Runs". (whoever heard of a woman driver then?) This was something to run home and tell Dad you had seen a woman driver! And playtime was PLAY time, we climbed trees, made bows and arrows, and had sword fights. (with sticks of course), and we were actors of scenes that involved cowboys and Indians, enemies, and armies. Great battles were fought in the fields and in our minds. Sometimes we argued, and a fight was started, but the unwritten rules were that the first boy to have a bloody nose or knocked down was the looser. We didn't kick or stamp or stab anyone.
The Summers were long and hot. But we had few holidays. Lucky if we ever saw the sea, it was more likely we would stay with "Auntie or Uncle", always the family.

Now most of you reading this, could never ever visualise the world as it was then, no instant news round the world, except the Pathe News at a cinema. This is the only view we had of the outside world. Some difference now!.

So I have seen the changes and had to adapt to them or get left behind, and as time goes on it gets even harder to remember when we didn't have all this technology. Where is it all going? You tell me, I am enjoying my later years playing with this technology and writing useless blogs like this, but it keeps me happy. I would love to come back for a couple of hours in a hundred more years time just to see what I am going to miss. Well maybe not, i'll let my imagination roam around like I did when I was young. By this century, I feel the world should be an easier place to live in, we know so much and have all the tools, but I am saddened by the apparent deterioration in many areas of peace and harmony, which we should all be enjoying from the fruits of this technology. But that's Political and another story and I'm not going there. Thanks for reading. Michael Chalke.