IT’S LATER THAN YOU THINK

[Stanley]

IT’S LATER THAN YOU THINK

Exactly a year ago today at this time my son in law Harry was getting his equipment together to go on a flight over the Indian Ocean with four of his colleagues to test some very sophisticated communications equipment. It was routine, they had done the same trip scores of times, another day at the office. Seven hours later he was dead, incinerated in the wreckage of the Cessna Titan which crashed shortly after take-off. One of his mates died three months later from his injuries, all the others, including the pilot were badly burned.
A small event on a world scale but shattering to those involved and their families. It reinforced something I always knew but had never experienced, you should never have to bury your children. However, I’m not writing this to let you all know how bad I feel, I’m trying to extract something useful from a terrible accident.
A bloke once told me that we can leave nothing behind but our kids and our work. In this respect Harry was a lucky man, he had left his mark in both respects. His real memorial is three wonderful children and a mass of ground-breaking work in high-level software engineering. We would do well to ponder on this.
Later this week a lot of people will tell me how wonderful the Lancashire Textile Project is. Good stuff but what I will be wanting to shout at them is “Quite! Get out there and do likewise!” The message is that it’s later than we think, life is a terminal disease, if there is anything you want to do, get on with it. Recognise that we can save all the artefacts we want but if we don’t record the skills necessary to operate them they will just be useless lumps of metal. The same principles apply to ordinary people’s life stories. They don’t need to be rocket scientists, they have much to teach generations to come about their lives. We all have access to such people so think very seriously about doing your bit. Write down your own story and make sure it is archived. Record old people’s memoirs and transcribe them. This is more than historical research, you are giving them a voice, ensuring that they have a memorial and building up a mass of prime-source information about the roots of our society.
Harry left his mark as did the informants in the LTP. It is down to us to make sure that more people get this opportunity to affect and enrich posterity.
11 August 2004