They say that 100 years ago a man knew 2 blocks North, 2 blocks South, 2 blocks East and 2 blocks West. Or back in Ireland as far as the market and back to the farm. No doubt the same in England. World War One changed everything, their innocence was taken away from them, no virgin on a wedding night. But rape as the guns fired over no mans land. Men came home with tales of woe, tales of Paris and drinking by the Seine. Tales of Mud and Death, they never spoke of because it was too much of a torment.
The small world of the village was swept away. Buses came along and linked village to town, the railway too. A small world was changed into a bigger world. Radio was invented, the wireless as it was called. The world could reach into every nook and cranny of the isolated village.Was it the work of the Devil, this radio. Newspapers too, not to mention the fact that more people could read. Isolation did not exist any more. Then came the Cinema, the Flicks as it was called because the films flickered. Everybody's world was changed, everybody had a bigger and bigger world view. It was like a walled garden that had its walls removed. No longer a cosy world, but the winds of change, the winds of communication. The walls came tumbling down, the walls came tumbling down. You would need to be a hermit, or a monk hidden away on top of a mountain on an island that was lost at sea, then and only then could you have a sheltered existance. TV came along, black and white then colour. Then cable and satelite and then HD. Not to mention computers and Internet, perhaps living on the dark side of the moon is the only place to be, IF you want solitude. For my street is the world, and all its news.
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