. . . . . that is the question.

Now here is a conundrum to tax your brains. Just suppose I was to build a fully functional, working time-travel machine (I know it’s possible cos I’ve seen one in action on the telly) and I travelled back in time to see my grandmother.

The time machine materialises in a street in Bolton, right in front of a passing young lady who happens to be my grandmother and pregnant with my father. The shock of seeing this strange apparition suddenly appearing in front of her causes her to step backwards right in front of a passing horseless carriage and she is killed instantly, and of course her unborn child (my father) dies as well.

Anxious to avoid publicity as a crowd gathers I jump back into my TARDIS (Time and Relative Dimensions In Space) machine and put it into reverse without thinking of the consequences of my actions. As soon as I reach the point in time from where I started, 5 July 2012, I instantly disappear because neither the Tardis or I ever existed. Well how could I? My grandmother died young in 1914 without giving birth!

Now the question is that if I didn’t exist I couldn’t have built a time machine and gone back in time to cause the accident that killed my grandmother. This means that she wasn’t killed and gave birth to my father and everything was as it should be, so I do exist and I build a time machine and go back to 1914 and cause my grandmothers demise. Then I come back to my own time and promptly vanish because neither the Tardis or I ever existed. Well how could I? My grandmother died young in 1914 without giving birth!

If I didn’t exist I couldn’t have built a time machine and gone back in time to cause the accident that killed my grandmother. This means that she wasn’t killed and gave birth to my father and everything was as it should be, so I do exist and I build a time machine and go back to 1914 and cause my grandmothers demise. . . . . . .

So am I caught in a ‘time loop’ which goes on forever? Or is there an answer to this?

If I don’t exist I can’t build a time machine and go back to just before the incident, or just after she gives birth to my father; and if I do exist then I am doomed to repeat the same mistake because it would not occur to me to change the time of my arrival in the past.

Help!

I was looking through some old family photographs when I found one of my old grannie Henton. She was a great character and loved by all the family. She was born in 1889 and died in 1962. In fact I took the picture in 1962 only a few days before she collapsed and died.

She used to say and do the strangest things at times. Whenever she visited me, or any of the family, she would draw an imaginary line across the threshold with her cane before entering and say, “With this cane I draw the bound, all malice and bane I thus confound”. Her walking cane always had a fresh flowers or bunch of herbs tied to it.

One of her favourite sayings was:

“When I die, please do not cry,
For I will leave you riches,
A knife, a fork, a cabbage stalk
And a pair of mouldy breeches”

Another one was:

“Farting is such merrie fun,
It giveth great delight,
It cheers thee in the daytime,
And keeps thee warm at night”.

and :

“Where ‘ere thee be, let the wind go free,
For t’was the wind that killeth me”.

I can’t remember many more and I wish now that I had written them down at the time.

When we went to the farmhouse for a meal she would always recite this “grace” before we ate:

“We wish that all people everywhere will have food to eat, water to drink and friends to meet. May the spirit of the Gods be at this table and in the hearts of all those we know and love”.

We all missed her when she died because she kept all the family together and sorted out any differences that cropped up, as they do in a large family group from time to time. Now 50 years on what was a united family unit has gone, every one has drifted away because of silly arguments and other unpleasant situations. I have lost contact with cousins and their siblings, and even my own sister has become a stranger now.

My Gran lies in Twycross Church graveyard next to Grandad, three of my aunts, two uncles and a cousin who died young. Every year at this time I buy eight red roses and place one on each grave. All the graves are in a row under a big tree, and don’t have any headstones or memorial.

Perhaps it’s a good thing that Gran can’t see what has happened to the family she was so proud of once.

This weeks photograph is of me as a wee lad in my last year at Junior School.

As you can see this picture is dated 1947 when I was 10 years old. The occasion was the local Church Garden Fete, and our class had to perform some country dances to please our doting parents.

I am the handsome boy in the middle of the picture dancing with the girl with the big ribbons in her hair. I fact she always wore enormous ribbons every day at school.

Ann Colkin, that was her name, was my first love. I absolutely adored her and I always endeavoured to sit next to her in class, stand near to her at playtime and assembly in the mornings. That is until I was challenged to a “duel to the death” by Stuart, the school creep and teachers pet, who also fancied his chances with Ann. Stuart is the boy at the front of the dancing team.

Being the challengee it was my right to choose the weapons and the place for the duel. (No, it was not behind the bikesheds with stun-guns, they weren’t invented then, mores the pity!). I chose marbles and the place was the playground at first break the next day.

The next day dawned bright and clear, ideal weather for the most important game of my life! We agreed that the winner would take the fair maid Ann for his own, and also the loser would forfeit his entire collection of marbles, his castle and estates, his livestock, weapons, et al!

The word got around the school and at playtime there were crowds waiting to see who would win the hand of Lady Ann.  The pitch was drawn up with chalk stolen from the teachers desk,  consisting of a “shooting line” and some distance away, a circle.  We each had a certain number of marbles and the idea was to get more in the circle than your opponent.

I lost! I was devastated, but I kept my composure and with the traditional British ’Stiff Upper Lip’ I shook hands with the victor and marched away head held high. For two nights after that I cried myself to sleep; that is until I met my new love, Pamela! She is in the picture, but I wont say where. . .

Now 63 years later, after a gap of more years that I can remember, I have met Ann again and we very often stop to chat, but sadly our dancing days are over now. Ann married and was divorced, as I was. We are both alone now. I often wonder what happened to all the others in the photo and how they fared in life.

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This weeks picture is of my mother and father on their wedding day in 1936. This is the only photograph that was taken on that momentous occasion, it was snapped by the best man as they walked away after the wedding looking deliriously happy an full of joy. The reason for this is that they were married in the local Registrars Office because my mother discovered that she was pregnant with me. Oh, the shame of it!

There was no family there, no reception afterwards, no photographer, just a couple of friends as witnesses.

Sex before marriage was frowned upon in those days, and if the woman got pregnant then the man was expected to do the decent thing and marry to the woman to give the baby (me, in this case!) a name. So you see, I’m not really a bastard after all!

Love didn’t enter into the equation at the time, but they must have felt something for each other because seven years later my sister was born. They divorced shortly after that. My mother had custody of my sister and I was “adopted” and brought up by my grandparents. Dad went off and married the woman that he had always loved before he met my mother.

Nowadays morals have changed and the sense of responsibility disappeared, if a man gets his girlfriend pregnant they are not expected to get married. Instead she gets a free council flat and benefits to raise the child courtesy of the taxpayer, and the boyfriend gets off scot-free.

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This weeks picture is of my mother when she was 20. She had three sisters and a brother, and my grandma always arranged for each one to go to a studio when they reached 21 or nearly, to have a series of professional photographs taken for the family album.

When my mothers turn came, she told me, she couldn’t afford a new dress for the occasion because at that time (1933) there was a recession (nothing new there then!) and her mother was stuggling to make ends meet.

Not wishing to look poor by wearing one of her old dresses she picked out her one and only decent dress, washed it and pressed it to look as if it had just come out of the box! If you look you can see the creases in both pictures. The pearls are real though, she inherited them from her grandmother, but had to sell them later when she lost her job.