Turning back the clock

I never attended this school, but my parents live almost next door. It was constructed in the 1960s, and early family photographs were dominated by the cranes in the background as the school got taller along with me and my sister.

Even though it was 50 years ago, the sixties don’t seem to me to be very distant. Me and most of my friends did at least some of their growing up in that decade, either as kids or teenagers. I look at ‘stuff’ from the sixties (music, architecture, art, politics) and see it as a bit dated, but still essentially of my time.

But if I then imagine rolling back another fifty years, something weird happens to the time-line in my head. It reaches back to the early years of the twentieth century, to the time before the first world war. Which is clearly not recent history, but ancient history.

How can fifty years ago be just a bit longer than yesterday, but double it and you end up in the dark ages?


The school building is currently scheduled for demolition.

Thanks to RexComu1’s father in law, whose 91st birthday candles sparked off these ponderings.