Years that slip past in a moment, by Peter Morford

            The sign over the man’s bed tells you that his name is Steven Hunter, aged 75; next of kin, his wife. Supervising Doctor: Oliver Pearson.  There follows a number of letters and numbers which mean little to the layman.

          The patient is now well enough to be propped up against a pile of pillows. He smiles politely when a nurse helps him with his dinner. When she goes he shuts his eyes to conserve his energy.  Perhaps he sleeps.

          Music plays softly on his personal radio. He smiles.

          It’s a woman singing. In the magical way of music it takes him back 60 years to the first day of the new school year.       Mr May, the Head was speaking. “This morning we’ll listen to a wonderful piece of music: Oh Silver Moon, sung by Rita Streich.”

          Even now, decades later, after many repetitions, the music still makes his spine tingle. He can see Mr May’s tall military figure, white hair cut short and parted in the middle, deep-cut lines in his cheeks; hear his London accent, rather comical in rural Hampshire; see his rapt attention as the notes die away before he stands up to continue the Assembly.

          Hunter winds back to his first meeting with Mr May. He was eleven and it was touch and go whether he would win the essential scholarship. His exam results were almost good enough and it now all depended on the interview.  But somehow he must have convinced the Head and his two aides that he was worth the gamble. Mr May had asked him what were his interests.

          “Astronomy, Sir.”

          Two more questions and the young candidate had rattled off his ideas about atoms, planets, stars and galaxies which he had fortuitously read in Children’s Encyclopaedia.

         

          Now, in his hospital bed, there is more music. Classic FM’s doing me proud this morning, he thought, his mind wandering back to his early career. As soon as he could he had escaped from his small town and headed for The City. 

          His old eyes are open now, staring at the plain wall. His thin lips stretch into a ghost of a smile because he’s reliving his youth. Playing records in his rooms with a few friends, going to concerts when he could afford it, taking Elaine to the theatre and to Cornwall, and eventually, up the aisle.

***********

         

We think we know all about time. We are watched by CCTV. A grocer’s receipt will tell you that on the 5^th June, at 10.47.05 you bought a quart of milk. Our phone, satnavs and computers record our every movement to the second.

          Time is the fourth dimension, we are told. Our ancestors divided the terrestrial year into days, hours and minutes.  They built Stonehenge, the Pyramids, Newgrange, Maiden Castle and eventually, sundials and mechanical clocks.

          Yet to the individual, time is a flexible abstract thing.  When the dentist says that he will only need to drill for 3 minutes you, the patient, grunt in agreement. There you are, plugged, gagged, sucking an inefficient saliva pump, wanting to swallow. He drills and drills. You begin to wonder if you put enough money in the parking meter.

          “There,” he says brightly, “That didn’t take long, did it? I’ll drill the other one now.”

          You bravely try to nod.

          Time moves all too slowly for a child because he spends so much of it just waiting.  Waiting for the boring lesson to end; wondering why they have to sing every damned verse and chorus of the hymn. Waiting impatiently for the match to start; wondering are we there yet? Waiting anxiously for puberty; counting down the days before we can get a driving licence. He wants the future now.

          His first 15 years drag like twenty.

          Later, as he watches his own children grow, time has shrunk. Suddenly it’s “Surely they’re not 16 already.”

          Then, years later, he feels that his grandchildren’s progress from infancy to adolescence was in virtually no time at all.  He miscalculates the recent past.

          Ask him: “When did you last go to Paris?”

          “About four years ago.”

          It was actually ten. “Who captained England in the last Ashes Series?

          “I don’t know.  But I can tell you it was Wally Hammond in 1946 and in the 1947 season Dennis Compton scored 3816 runs”

          Our short term memory is unreliable. We forget recent names yet could reel off scores, maybe hundreds, of former school-mates and work colleagues from 50 years ago.

          I knew a man who had been a Pathfinder during the War.  He flew nearly a hundred sorties over Germany, lighting the way for the bombers behind him. He had crash-landed in Holland, been sheltered by brave Dutchmen, smuggled back to England and further duties. He had an AFC.

          Like many others, he rarely spoke about the War.  Instead, he wrote it all down and one day invited me to read his account.  We call them Charlie’s Posthumous Papers. They will never be published unless his great grandchildren find a way of putting them on Amazon.

          What does all this tell us about time?  According to Arthur C Clarke in Songs of Distant Earth, an astronaut on a long voyage ages at a slower rate than do those he leaves behind. On his return from a ten- year voyage at something like the speed of light he will find Earth is hundreds of years older. Apparently the Large Hadron Collider confirms the theory.

          As we run out of future we refresh and review the past, making it the more vivid.

 

          Play the music and bring it all back!