Reach for the light switch and it isn't there. Try and text your friend but the technology hasn't even be thought of yet. Ring on the land line, but there isn't one. Never mind, pop to the kitchen and get a glass of water from the tap, but there isn't one of those either.. hopefully by now you are seeing a pattern emerging.
For my father growing up in the South Shropshire hill's this was the norm not the exception. They obtained water from a well 300 yards away from the house, there was never a telephone and candles provided the only light. He was the eldest son of a methodist family who were strict chapel goers in fact his mother Clipsie Eileen played the organ on Sunday's. His father was called Heber, a big shouldered man tall in stature as well as being straight as a gun barrel in personality. He never borrowed or owed money in his life, it just wasn't done.
Heber worked a small farm under the Titterstone hill's in South Shropshire, he worked in a quarry to make ends meet and tended the horses that pulled the heavy carts in and out of the steep climb to the quarry face.
Life was tough and my dad, Caradoc Heber, yes that was his name, worked very hard in order for the family to survive. No Wii, no X box, no computers, just his imagination and his beloved scooter he had for his 6th birthday was all that he had to amuse himself.
The strange thing is, he was no worse off than any of the spoiled teenagers or youngsters we have spawned nowadays, he used his mind to take him on far off journeys, he used his imagination to take him somewhere else, something the kids nowadays get done for them with the ubiquitous computer. What a shame, we give them iphones and Xbox like they are trophies simply because their friends have them. Why don't we restrict such games until after they are 18?. How great would it be that kids got to use their imaginations once more?.
..Perhaps then they might find out what it would be like to light a candle instead of flick a switch..
For my father growing up in the South Shropshire hill's this was the norm not the exception. They obtained water from a well 300 yards away from the house, there was never a telephone and candles provided the only light. He was the eldest son of a methodist family who were strict chapel goers in fact his mother Clipsie Eileen played the organ on Sunday's. His father was called Heber, a big shouldered man tall in stature as well as being straight as a gun barrel in personality. He never borrowed or owed money in his life, it just wasn't done.
Heber worked a small farm under the Titterstone hill's in South Shropshire, he worked in a quarry to make ends meet and tended the horses that pulled the heavy carts in and out of the steep climb to the quarry face.
Life was tough and my dad, Caradoc Heber, yes that was his name, worked very hard in order for the family to survive. No Wii, no X box, no computers, just his imagination and his beloved scooter he had for his 6th birthday was all that he had to amuse himself.
The strange thing is, he was no worse off than any of the spoiled teenagers or youngsters we have spawned nowadays, he used his mind to take him on far off journeys, he used his imagination to take him somewhere else, something the kids nowadays get done for them with the ubiquitous computer. What a shame, we give them iphones and Xbox like they are trophies simply because their friends have them. Why don't we restrict such games until after they are 18?. How great would it be that kids got to use their imaginations once more?.
..Perhaps then they might find out what it would be like to light a candle instead of flick a switch..
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