In simpler times

I suppose that as we get older a number of things happen:

1.     We are reunited with memories from earlier days.

2.     Those memories seem to be very tender/precious/valuable.

3.     We remember that our parents’ memories from their earlier days used to bore us, but now we wish that our Mums and Dads were still with us so that we could hear their memories all over again.

4.     We know that the oral tradition is as valuable as is that which is written. So it is that we know that story-telling is a powerful way of linking generation to generation.  (For instance, I treasure the memory of the stories from my paternal grand-mother Sarah – [Sally] - Bennett Povey. a.k.a. “Nanny”. Her father was a coal miner in the open cast pits in Easton.  She, as a school-girl, saw Queen Victoria. Can you imagine that!)  

 Now in 2012 I remember Queen Victoria as if I (not my “Nanny”) had seen her.

My latent memories from sixty or so years ago have been re-ignited as a result of my re-connection with a friend from my boyhood and youth, Jeffrey Davies. He was my best pal.

Our e-mails have been so very pleasant and pleasurable.  They have taken me back to times which I had almost forgotten – the times when we visited his Auntie May - she was his father’s sister, not his grand-mother’s sister as I indicated in my entry yesterday. Auntie May lived with her husband George (Lancaster) on a farm near Devizes in Wiltshire.

On that farm we collected eggs, watched the cows as they were milked, romped around in the hay barn, and wandered the fields and meadows.

On that farm we were engulfed with the generous love of Jeff’s Auntie May and Uncle George.

It was a simpler time: with no T.V., Internet, or Mobile ‘phones.  It was not necessarily better than these days.  But it was indeed simpler.