WWC member – and chair – Peter Morley says of this piece:

“This little story is a moment in the life of Tommy, an old soldier. He fought a war for us and toiled to buy his own home. There was some good luck and a lot of work, and he is happy with his lot. Tommy is a lot like my father who had similar experiences and lived just long enough to retire.”

***

REFLECTIONS

by Peter Morley

2 July 1976, Friday, I think.

Time travel is wonderful. Young people don’t know we can do it and they wouldn’t believe us if we told them. The secret is safe.

It’s lovely in my garden.  Beans are in full flower; crimson beads, simmering with life in high summer, a healthy backdrop to the rows of vegetables but a good enough show for an herbaceous border.  That’s where I’ll plant them next year, if there is a next year.  I have certainly had a good innings.  A few close scrapes but I’m still batting on.  Just lucky, I suppose.  The paths are mown. There’s almost nothing that needs doing …  Except the hedge.  And the roses and …  

“You’re smiling, Tommy,” she says as she puts the tray of coffee and a small plate of shortbread biscuits, my favourite, on the weathered wooden table by my old bench seat.  We don’t talk much. Don’t need to; I suppose we’ve said it all and now we just share thoughts and feelings. Telepathy. That’s another superpower granted to those lucky enough to be around long enough.

“I suppose I was. So, this is what it’s all been for?” I return the smile, just with the eyes.

It’s been worth the effort … it’s been worth the effort.

Betsy is perfect. She leaves me to my thoughts when she can see I am in the moment. We’ve travelled a long way together and now we don’t like to be too far apart. We are scarcely two people anymore, like the oaks, over there in the north-east corner. I don’t remember what we were thinking when we planted those two acorns side by side, just after we moved in. What a feeling it was to have our own home at last, and just enough years to pay off the mortgage by retirement. The roots intertwine and their trunks cleave together as one, supporting each other through sunshine and storm.

When did it change from looking forward to looking back? We talked when we were making plans, charting the way, battling the obstacles. But mostly we just worked.

We are time travellers. We move forward, together, at a steady, but not constant, rate. At times, like this, it’s very slow, or stationary, and it is quite easy to slip back a few decades. I don’t think young people can do this, except, perhaps, if they are close to death; a moment that changes the perspective.  I experienced it once or twice during the war.

I can travel back but I choose not to interfere with events, even after all these years I don’t feel qualified to meddle and, if I changed something, it might not work out as well.

Time is a clever phenomenon, one I didn’t understand when I was in a hurry.  The thing about time is that it doesn’t have a fixed speed; it depends on the observer, and it doesn’t exist outside my head.  It’s just my way of interpreting events. Events are possibilities that I pull out of the big bag of opportunities and put in sequence so I can deal with them – that’s where time comes in. I see it all so clearly now.

I have been a lot of different people. There was the child – I don’t often think about him but there are a few threads that occasionally draw me back there. The boy – quite a tough childhood when I think about it. The young man – those were heady days when anything was possible.  And there was the soldier – that was hard – but good.  I wouldn’t have missed any of it. I have no desire to be young again with all the pain and uncertainty, but I enjoy visiting those times and savouring the good bits: the wonder of the child, enthusiasm of youth, the character you find in people under the danger of war.

That was all before I met Betsy. What a team. We started from scratch together, after the war – with nothing, just our hopes and each other.  Are we all destined to find the one? Some are not so lucky, I know, but it all seems so right. I couldn’t have done it without her, and I like the person she made me better than the other one.  I love visiting our shared years, too – with all its hardships and triumphs. Sunshine and storms … and sunshine.

It’s the whole thing that makes life worth living and its sweetness comes from all the ingredients going into the pot at the right time. It has to be a complete cycle; all phases are special but this last one is when you savour the whole pudding. Or regret, I suppose, if you didn’t have much luck – or didn’t work hard enough at it. The man who said, ‘The harder I work, the luckier I become’ was a time traveller.

Old John drinks in the Langley Tavern. He has his stool – and his philosophy. ‘No, I’ve never been anywhere, why would I? I’ve got it all right here. If you’re goin’ to be poor, be poor in a nice place. I’ve never worked for anyone; if I found a better man than me, I’d work for him; but I ain’t.’  This rolls seamlessly to, ‘Look at them youngsters, they’re a waste of space, why don’t they get a proper job? Get their hands dirty, do some proper work?’  His pint goes down very slowly, it can last till closing time. Only a sip later it might be, ‘What I’d give to be young again, all that energy, nothing to worry about, they don’t know they’re born.’

He might be right about that. You don’t really know until you see death coming over the hill towards you. Perhaps I’ve been luckier than John, perhaps that’s why I drop in for the occasional pint, just so he can remind me of my good fortune. It is good to put it into perspective. I’m not the only one who tops up his glass.

It doesn’t matter how much wealth, influence, knowledge or position we amass in a lifetime. We all end up equal when the final sparkle of light fades at our last sunset, but it may feel different if there is beauty, love and satisfaction in the stew.  It doesn’t matter how much we’ve had or how far travelled; we’ve seen the sunrise and had the opportunity.  It’s how you used it that marks your card.

I never imagined we would be this old.  Now we have a lot of time behind us and so many memories, time and memory are linked in a way I never imagined. It is time travel. I can be in the present, enjoying the garden, feeling Betsy’s hand on my shoulder. Or be back at school or in any port my ship has called at along the way. I suppose imagination is the future. I no longer have much use for imagination. It was important once. Not before I met her, but together we looked into the future, and it gave us the energy for the toil.

A disappointment is that I don’t feel I have never grown wiser as I thought you were supposed to. I do have a different perspective, though. Perhaps that, in itself, is a little bit of sagacity.  Certainly, there is a lot of knowledge in there somewhere – even it’s not all available on demand. I have to wait for it to leak out. Like the time travel, I can’t control when it will happen. But when I travel, I go with all six senses: sight, smell, touch, taste, hearing, and emotion. They are all present, with all the detail and I am there, in the moment, nothing missing.

Where to next?

29 April 1939, Saturday. Sunrise, 5:38, the BBC voice said.

To be continued …