…every successive generation ‘acquires’ new ‘stuff’… and sadly, the balancing factor states that very same generation also ‘loses’ a lot of ‘stuff’… the modern child is weaned on iPhones, Internet, web communication, sundry ‘applications’ for this, that and the other, much of which robs them of the practice of thinking for themselves… the ability to do simple arithmetic diminished with the advent of pocket calculators… the art of spelling and other elements of WURD-smithing has dissolved into Google spellcheck, and all manner of facts are not ‘learned’ anymore, but subject to pressing a button to search on some web link to have inquisitive minds sated… (and by the way, if the answer is incorrectly quoted on the web source, it still becomes the set-in-stone definition)… I often ponder on the comparisons of the ‘thens and nows’, especially from life in the Dockland Govan slums in Glasgow where I and hundreds of thousands of others grew up… money was eternally scarce… when my father did WURK, the earnings were meagre… we had a Westclox brand alarm clock which probably cost all of ten shillings when new (50-pence in modern UK currency)…
…without fail, every Monday, the clock was taken to the local pawnshop and pledged for the princely amount of one shilling and threepence… on Friday evening, from the parental wage packet, it found its way back home after payment of the redemption sum of one shilling and fourpence… hence explaining why at home we never asked what the time was during the week… so how did we get up in the mornings in time to go to school?… easy… we also had an old radio, more commonly known as ‘the wireless’, which my mother switched on when she awoke, which could be anytime from 4.30 am onward…
…time checks pipped on the hour every hour back then… and off we’d be packed to school… on the subject of time, I never possessed a wrist watch until long past my fifteenth birthday… and today I own only one… punctuality became a built-in awareness… there were no mobile phones to call and tell people if yeez were delayed anywhere… yeez just got to wherever yeez were supposed to be, on time… try that with the majority of youngsters nowadays … I think I much prefer the ‘old’ way, to be honest… see yeez later… LUV YEEZ!…
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Wonder how much that clock ended up costing with all the extra pennies? 🙂
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..indeed… the cumulative interest cost would be considered outrageous by today’s standard of pay packet lending, m’Lady , Sue…
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Ah, but the pawn shops were frendlier then 😉
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..correct… that’s why we called them ‘Uncle’s’.. 🙂
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You too? 😉
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its way back home….otherwise mostly nice spelling.
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..I sit suitably mortified… correction made already, that man… thanks ! 🙂 have a great week 🙂
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The shipyard ‘hooters’ were also a way of time keeping? I’m pretty sure my uncle’s yard -Fairfields- sounded a ‘5-minute to go’ horn or something like that (?) as a warning that it was time to get behind those gates? My mum’s bedroom clock was a cream version of that clock above but it never went to the pawn shop. Maybe because there wasn’t one in Drumchapel? 😉
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LUV IT! 🙂
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You know well what time is worth, for sure. 🙂
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…the most precious commodity of all, which generally I squander the most 🙂
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It seems we often think too much about time these days. Good piece, Seumas. My husband used to say, “If we fail, we’re going to fail while eating.” At times when money was scarce, food came first. 😀
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..yes …and the children’s food comes even before that 🙂 been there , know that one, m’Lady 🙂
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Not one of my kids wears a watch–that’s what the clock on their mobile is for, they tell me.
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…times (pun intended) have changed, indeed, m’Lady, Barb:)
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