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Re: Lydd international


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Posted by Peter Ceresole on June 28, 2016 at 13:55:14 user PeterC.

In Reply to: Re: Lydd international posted by Mike Dennis on June 27, 2016 at 22:24:37:

off topic it may be, but a fascinating story and insight in to the world as it was then

Well yes. I'm thinking back to how things changed, especially how the world was so much bigger in AR's early days. Reading the excellent "Last Englisman" life of AR, one of the striking things was how important train journeys were, as they appeared in the stories, and how for AR in Russia they must have been such a large part of his life; getting around was so important, and so difficult. Also, reading about his trips to Russia, starting from Ipswich, wasn't it, where he threw his bag onto the deck as it left port and jumped after it. And it took a day or more to get to the Baltic, where the real hard bit started, playing chess for his life... We have it so easy, it's hard to imagine. The last time I had a trip into Russia (it was still just the Soviet Union, I think) we were going to Krasnoyarsk, to talk to some scientists who'd lived for a year in a sealed stainless steel pod, simulating a trip to Mars. We were held up for four hours (four hours! because they'd run out of jet fuel at Sheremetyevo (the old Moscow airport). It was winter in Siberia, and Russian soldiers really did have snow on their (very comfortable) felt boots.
How long did it take the Wild Cat to get to the Caribbean? And how long does it take a Scarab to sail the length of Windermere? That's a question, by the way; I have no idea. And I know it doesn't really have a single answer.
Apart from the phenomenal increase in general wealth, it seems to me that the greatest change has been the squeezing of time. An Irish friend of mine used to say, when we tried to get him to hurry a little, "My old dad used to say, 'when God made time, he made plenty'."
I think that was a heck of lot more true in AR's time than it is now.


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