Popular at the Time

-
Taken from "The Boy Mechanic" Popular Mechanics, 1920's


I was just musing on how life has changed in the past century - my sister and cousin have been posting numerous old family photos on Facebook lately, including one of my great-grandmother Malpas with my mother and two brothers, Edgar and Godfrey as children. My grandmother and grandfather Southall were married around the time the kind of strip above used to run regularly in the American magazine 'Popular Mechanics'. Some of the projects featured in these articles would be well beyond the capabilities of most adults these days, let alone today's children. Not least of which the HSE considerations - some of the 'builds' look positively lethal to modern eyes and would probably lead to arrest or at least a strong caution.

I used to have a 'Boys' Annual' - itself anachronistic [hopefully] in today's world, I can't remember which one, but it was a treasure trove of activities and projects for the young boy that would make modern parents blench. The thought of their little darlings disappearing into the countryside for the weekend on their own: building 'bender' tents, camp ovens out of biscuit-tins; snaring, killing, skinning, cooking and eating rabbits and other such things - wielding large knives and setting fire to stuff: the kids would be taken into care and the parents arrested for neglect.

But, the essence of books like this was as much about the learning of useful skills and using tools, as it was about filling the long school holidays with something to do. There's common-sense lurking in the apparently dangerous waters of such a childhood.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Of Feedback & Wobbles

-
Image
Many years ago I came up with an analogy for poorly damped feedback loops. The feedback loop that prompted this frankly tart analogy was indeed a horror. Anyone who remembers shame-faced their first attempts at clutch control resulting in the good old kangaroo launch across the lights only to stall in the middle of the crossroads will have some idea of the kind of data transfer lag involved in said system. The analogy I made was that of a large blancmange. Untouched, a model of stasis and eminently stable and predictable; but prod the bugger and the resultant chaotic behaviour needs a very complex physical model and some very decent computing horsepower to predict its outputs, if at all. The system in question was a large and complex audio-visual display at what eventually became 'The Electric Mountain' in Llanberis. We were ultimately contracted to maintain the thing having been witness to and peripherally involved in its installation. Certainly not involved in its des
Read more

Sister Ray

-
Image
Ray Keats - aka Ann Key - local artist & family friend, died this morning. She'd been ill for some years, but never let it get in the way of her work or of tending to the massive network of friends, colleagues and fans she had accumulated over the decades. Her house on the High Street of Rachub, just below where we live - a former cockle factory(!) - bought many years ago when she and her late husband Ronald moved here from Manchester to set up home in Yr Achub, is currently still home to her paintings and drawings, and the front window displays her work, including the last drawing she made in hospital, just days before she died. Her good friend Colin has been a diamond in her latter years, looking out for her and just being there when she needed him. She will be much missed by this tiny community of ageing bohemians up here in the hills, but suffice it to say, George, her cat, will be well looked after now she's gone.
Read more

A Time of Connection

-
Image
I was just reflecting on the vacuum of continuity that's left behind when someone dies: that sudden sense of disjoint, of fracture, in one's personal history that takes one completely by surprise at the oddest moments. These pinch-points in memory can often yield some surprising revelations of fact about periods in one's past. One such occurred to me tonight, tending my rather lazy meal of pizza in its journey from shrink-wrap to mouth via the oven. Al's recent demise still catches me out from time to time: the space he left bounded by forty plus years of friendship. But the thing that struck me tonight was just how much change was happening on a personal and social level in the very early years of our acquaintance. Between moving here from Birmingham in September 1980 and our buying our first proper house eighteen months later, all manner of things occurred that would chart the course of our lives to the present day. At around the time of our meeting Alan & Irene [
Read more