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People you’ve known or met who could remember furthest back in history.

TheDecameron said:
It’s amazing the Transit has been with us for over half a century now,

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here’s a white example
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They came in grey, with a white roof too, if I remember correctly.

Woodface said:
I had great grand parents who were born around 1900 so too young for WW1 & too old for WW2. My grandad on fathers side lied about his age to join up in the navy for WW2, saw some terrible things but lived a good life until he was 95. He ran his own business for many years, served as a magistrate & councillor. In the end he received the Legion D’honour from France for his time in the navy, a great man who I miss daily.

Compared to him I’ve done bugger all.
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I think most if us feel like that. We were, on the whole, the lucky generation.
 
I'm only a youngster..approaching my 73rd birthday.. but...

I recall horse drawn ploughing and harvesting in fields yards from my home, a genuine 'steam' roller working at the bottom of our street, a time when you could count the private cars in several streets on the fingers of one hand, and when supermarkets had yet to be invented.

We had regular visits from a horse drawn greengrocer's wagon. (Mr Sanderson), horse drawn 'Steptoe' types, intinerant knife grinders on bicycles and 'Old School' travellers who made clothes pegs and fake Chrysanthemums from twigs.. I watched them do it on the verge opposite our house. Many tradesmen still carried their tools and materials in a hand cart.

The above all the more strange as we lived overlooking Rolls Royce Watnall and regularly saw all the latest military jets whizzing about, including Meteor, Canberra,Javelin, Vulcan, Vampire, Provost, Hunter and, most memorably, Lightning.

Steam engines from the 1930s were revered, the last of steam from the 50s admired, and Diesels seen as soul less interlopers..unless they carried names.. which sort of validated them.

Although I wouldn't give up the internet, etc.. those days represented a much more solid connection with the real world. I doubt it's unique, but few kids these days live opposite open farmland, close to main and branch line railways, collieries and test airfields. It was a fascinating time to grow up.
 
Vinny said:
This surprises many.
My parents were born in the very early years of the 20th century and the internal combustion engine was a rare thing indeed - it wasn't as common as many would think when I grew up through the 60's. My parents remembered steam when it was the only power. - when steam rollers were exactly that, when two steam engines ploughed fields by running steel cables from one side of a field to the other, and dragging the plough that way, when threshing engines turned-up during the winter to thresh the wheat that was in stooks and stacks.

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Just to be clear, is that your father?

The changes in agricultural technology were well advanced by the time I was born at the end of the 1950s, but the tide of change certainly hasn't stopped since. That piece of film certainly struck a chord.

We had two agricultural contractors in the village who ran threshing teams. Each team had 11 men. The corn - a generic term used then to describe wheat, oats, or barley, was reaped into stoops by a horse, and latterly tractor drawn, reaping machine, and they would be working hard for weeks. The same farms have mostly been gathered into units now of between about 700 and 2000 acres, which employ 2 people full time, with a couple of extra tractor drivers brought in at harvest time, with a single, tracked, combine harvester which operates entirely by GPS except at the field ends.

My brother in law, who farms a couple of thousand acres, doesn't think twice about going on holiday mid-harvest, occasionally tracking the progress of the combine around the fields on his phone from the beach in Sicily, or the pool in Umbria.
 
Mullardman said:
I'm only a youngster..approaching my 73rd birthday.. but...

I recall horse drawn ploughing and harvesting in fields yards from my home, a genuine 'steam' roller working at the bottom of our street, a time when you could count the private cars in several streets on the fingers of one hand, and when supermarkets had yet to be invented.

We had regular visits from a horse drawn greengrocer's wagon. (Mr Sanderson), horse drawn 'Steptoe' types, intinerant knife grinders on bicycles and 'Old School' travellers who made clothes pegs and fake Chrysanthemums from twigs.. I watched them do it on the verge opposite our house. Many tradesmen still carried their tools and materials in a hand cart.

The above all the more strange as we lived overlooking Rolls Royce Watnall and regularly saw all the latest military jets whizzing about, including Meteor, Canberra,Javelin, Vulcan, Vampire, Provost, Hunter and, most memorably, Lightning.

Steam engines from the 1930s were revered, the last of steam from the 50s admired, and Diesels seen as soul less interlopers..unless they carried names.. which sort of validated them.

Although I wouldn't give up the internet, etc.. those days represented a much more solid connection with the real world. I doubt it's unique, but few kids these days live opposite open farmland, close to main and branch line railways, collieries and test airfields. It was a fascinating time to grow up.
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Extraordinary. I find this fascinating.
 
Anyone visiting ww1 battlefield and war memorials etc will understand how brutal that war was. Generals sending men over the to often certain death. What surprised me when visiting was how close the enemy trenches were.

My wife's late grandfather served and could not bring himself to talk about it, I suspect that was the same as many of that generation.
 
I'm fascinated by stories of lives that span vast historical times.

I was a year old when my great grandmother died. She was born in 1867 and died in 1963. I don't remember her!
So as a young girl, she would no doubt have heard news from the Zulu Wars and lived to witness the Beatles and space flight.

I enjoyed the story of the father of cellist Steven Isserlis. He met a woman who met Beethoven.

My father-in-law told me of a friend of his who, as a student of Wagner, travelled on a sort of pilgrimage to Bayreuth.
On seeing Wahnfried, he walked straight up the path to the front door and knocked it.
A housekeeper opened it and asked him what he wanted. He just about had enough time to say that he just had to see the house when an old woman shouted "shut that door" from
the top of the stairs.
It was Cosima (Wagner).
Liszt's daughter, lived to meet Hitler. (1837-1930).
 
k90tour said:
So as a young girl, she would no doubt have heard news from the Zulu Wars and lived to witness the Beatles and space flight.
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Two out of three requires no great age - I am 62. These things happen in a blinking of the eye, not "vast historical times".

I also remember "All Our Yesterdays" - my parents never missed that, and I also remember the first showing of "The World at War" in far more detail.

I also remember walking across farmland and finding kit (a seed drill especially well) with brass plates on them - embossed along the lines of "Donated by the farmers of Minnesota to farmers of the UK as part of lend-lease". Mostly made of wood apart from the actual mechanism.
 
Vinny said:
I also remember "All Our Yesterdays" - my parents never missed that, and I also remember the first showing of "The World at War" in far more detail.
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We always watched that - I particularly remember the week they did the Hindenburg disaster.
 
Step father in laws dad was
" a pilot with No. 205 Squadron RAF, he shot down six enemy aircraft between June and October 1918, the first three in a DH.4, and the latter three in a DH.9A.[1][2] For his efforts, Barbour was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. The citation for the award read:

This officer has carried out twenty-nine bombing raids and forty-seven photographic reconnaissances, displaying at all times marked courage and clear judgment. On 9th October, when on reconnaissance, he was attacked by ten Fokkers and forced to retire; on the disappearance of the Fokkers he again crossed the line; he was then attacked by three Fokkers, but these he drove off, shooting down one, which was seen to crash.[4] [ wickipeadia]

he was a squadron leader , wing commander and temporary group captain. we still have his flying books and amzing reading it is too
 
Barrymagrec said:
I particularly remember the week they did the Hindenburg disaster.
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It has been played so many times over the years, I am unsure.

I do remember coverage of the sinking of The Hood - my mother was at school with a lad - whose name I have LONG since forgotten - who went down with it.

One of my metalwork teachers worked in aircraft factories around Coventry and saw the very first pop-rivets used. He also spoke of the anti-icing on wing leading edges - thick hollow rubber mouldings that pulsed to expand and contract. One hell of job to fit apparently. Lock nuts? Just piss on it!!! Mr Burroughs.

One of my maths teachers was the youngest inmate of Colditz (John Powell-Davies) and another was a rear gunner in 617 squadron (Mr Denham).

My father swam in the pool at the Eagle's Nest, or whatever one of Hitler's bases had the pool, before the Americans destroyed the place. One of only 3-4 recollections I ever remember him mentioning.
 
No, no relation, so far as I know, @eternumviti.

For anyone who, like me, could listen to Mr Hargreaves all day, there appears to be a whole raft of new-to-YouTube programmes - Old Country - loaded in the past few weeks - try this one, I am still looking for the one mentioning squoils - enjoy -


A most amazing man, with an almost incredible life, BTW - investigate if at all interested and uneducated about his real life.
 
Yes, I looked him up after having been straightened out as to who he was. Fascinating career. I knew the name, of course, but never watched a huge amount of TV. I don't think I ever saw 'How', despite the fact that I knew the late Jon Miller a little bit, back in the mists of time.
 
My grandmother told me she could remember the doodlebugs flying over. Apparently it was fine if you could hear them, it was when they stopped making noise you had to worry (when they drop out the sky).

Can't imagine what it must of been like living like that. In fear of bombs dropping on your house.
 
When I was quite young (still in my single digits) my dad spent some time as a handyman at a retirement home. He lived on-site and when I visited, I pretty much just hung out with the old folks all day. They liked having me around.

Two memorable ancient residents I remember vividly were the son of a freed slave, and the son of a Confederate soldier in the Civil War. Both were born well before the turn of the century. They spent their days playing cards and were inseparable friends.
 
My problem (or one of them) is that I have such a poor memory. So in terms of telling my children about ‘the olden days’ I’m hampered by the fact that I can barely remember them.

For example, I went to York on a school trip on one of the last scheduled steam train services. What do I remember about it? Bugger all, except that we had a fish and chip supper at the end of the visit, but the teacher misread the time, and we had a mad dash to York station, as a result of which I had terrible indigestion.
 
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