In my life

Though I know I’ll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I’ll often stop and think about them
In my life I love you more

In My Life – Lennon/McCartney

I have been racking my brains over the past week or so trying to find an angle from which I might contribute something thoughtful or meaningful to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington and – of course – of Martin Luther King’s epochal speech with which that event has become synonymous. Much has been written – over the intervening decades and in the run up to the commemoration itself – concerning both the event and the man, by writers considerably more gifted than I could ever hope to be. It may indeed simply be that all that could be – and possibly even should be – has already been said.

This reflection, however – as such contemplation frequently does – leads me on to other thoughts with which the gentle reader might discern some resonance.

I was only nine in 1963 and have no direct memories at all of the march or of the speech. The only event that year to have left a lasting impression on me – as on so many others – occurred later in the year – that fateful November in Dallas. The true nature and significance of even that momentous happening was lost on me at the time, of course. My mother was an avid Home Service listener and I do recall programmes being punctuated by shocked reports from Texas, though I was – at the time – unable to make much sense of them. When my father returned from work I ran down the garden path to meet him crying “They’ve shot the prime minister”… Of course, I didn’t actually know who that was either (Alec Douglas-Home, as it happens – MacMillan having resigned in October the same year!).

I grew up surrounded by women (bear with me here!). My parents were both only children but each of their mothers came from large families. I stress ‘mothers’ here because – other than my father – I have no memories at all of any of the men in either family. An initial imbalance in favour of the female had been exacerbated by the war and by ill health. Of grandmothers and great aunts I thus had an abundance, all of whom – endowed with the robust family female gene – lived to a ripe old age.

My grandmother on my mother’s side was born in the very early days of the nascent twentieth century, around the same time that Queen Victoria passed away. I recall in my youth being amazed that one lifetime could encompass so many dramatic changes and extraordinary events. She lived through two world wars… She witnessed the arrival of the motor car (as anything other than a plaything for the rich)… She was alive for the birth of flight and thus for the development of air travel… She was born in an age that pre-dated radio and TV. I could go on…

You can probably see where this is going.

At the time I could not imagine what it must be like to have lived long enough to have seen or experienced so many happenings. Maybe I just couldn’t imagine that such a pace of change could be maintained.

Now – of course – the realisation that when the March on Washington took place I was already approaching the start of my second decade on this verdant planet makes me realise just how many such events have actually taken place on my watch – as it were. The moon landings… The fall of the Berlin wall… The end of Apartheid in South Africa… The Good Friday agreement… The financial crash… The advent of the personal computer and of the mobile phone… The birth and extraordinary growth of the InterWebNet… DVDs… CGI… A Briton winning Wimbledon!… and on and on…

What this tells me is that I am already well on my way to achieving a similar status to that which my grandmother enjoyed – that of having lived a bloomin’ long time!

…and of having seen many things…