THE MOVE A short story by Ted Bun
Christmas Day 1998
The forecast was the temperature to set to a very respectable 70 degrees. Not bad for Cambridge if you looked at the historical records. However, in terms of recent years it was unremarkable. Mid-summer temperatures of over 80 degrees had become commonplace ever since The Move had been completed.
The Move, I’ve decided to use the name for the project, including the capital letters, that was given to the popular press. That had been a stroke of genius, the official papers had named it “National Mobilisation” which smacked of the pre-war lack of planning.
I’m getting ahead of myself, the background to The Move was the second World War and the bitter winter of 1948. The massive cost and damage to the economy of the whole of Europe caused by World War 2 cannot be overstated. Rebuilding was a slow process as industries geared to make weapons of destruction were re-aligned for peace. A huge task even under ideal conditions.
The winter of 1948 had been far from ideal. In Britain alone, the bitter cold had killed thousands. People had gone hungry. All industrial activity had ground to a halt. The economic recovery from World War 2 was set back five years in five weeks. For Britain it was a disaster, another severe winter like that could destroy everything the country had achieved.
The Government struggled to find ways to ameliorate the situation. There was no money. There was not enough coal in the right places, it was trapped at the pit heads and docksides. The food arriving from around the world was trapped in the ports and could not be moved to the shops.
What could be done? What could they do? How do they prevent the cold killing people? How could they intervene to prevent snow and ice stopping the country?
“How could the Government prevent cold and snow causing death and chaos in Britain ever again?” The challenge sent to every university, every research facility, civil and military, and every policy think-tank in the country. The prize on offer for a workable solution was huge, financially, academically and socially. Fame, fortune and status awaited the team with the right idea.
The answers came back, sadly weak on ideas and thin on detail. The civil service panel of the great and good, set up to review the ideas, rejected them all in very short order.
The panel sat was reconvened to review what resources could be applied to solving the problems caused by a severe winter.
The list was fairly short; The army, but no petrol for the tanks. The air force, but no fuel for the planes. The navy, more ships than the navy could use in peacetime. And piles, no, mountains, of unburnt coal at the mines and ports. Not a lot of useful resouces, really.
That was until the Chief Science Officer from the committee overheard a conversation in the staff canteen. One of the juniors in the Department of War was trying to impress one of the typists.
“I wish I was back in ’ve Azores. I was vere in forty-four an’ forty-five” he boasted. “Even in winter, it was never less than 65 degrees. I kid yer not! I fink they should tow us sarf to find some nice wever!”
The CSO took a few moments to decipher the strong London accent. Eventually, he had most of it translated into the King’s English.
The Azores, a group of Portuguese Islands in the Atlantic. They are about 1000 miles south of London. The climate he recalled was pretty much that, a climate rather than wever, sorry weather. The seasons saw daily temperatures vary between 65 and 80 degrees. Moderate rainfall and few real storms. A nice place to avoid the cold and snow of the UK.
“Tow us sarf… South” he thought.
“Who could he mean by “they”?” he mused. The only towing he could think of was the barges being towed up and down the Thames by tugs. Then things started to click into place in his mind.
‘Boats pulling things…’
‘More ships than the Navy could use…’
‘Lots of coal at the ports…’
It was a silly idea, a very silly idea, it would never work, or would it?
*****************
Next morning, he set his team to work on the theoretical problems.
Two weeks later the Tech Team came back with an interim discussion paper. Subject to one condition it would be possible to tow the country. It would slow to start with but the speed would build up steadily as inertia was overcome. Then the problem would be trying to stop at the right place. That would be easy to calculate on the move as all the information could be updated on a daily basis using real data rather than a mathematical model.
The one condition was, however, a real biggie. They had to overcome the forces of friction.
The weight of the country was, as the scientist doing the briefing put it, “bloody huge!”. The surface area the weight was acting over was in the region of 90,000 square miles.
Either the mass had to be reduced, the surface area changed. Both were sort of constants given this was Britain. The only other option was to somehow change the coefficient of friction.
That was going to be a tricky one.
Three weeks later a young research student at Kings College, Cambridge identified the solution. He had been looking at data about earthquakes that revealed that it wasn’t just vibration that made buildings fall down. There was an effect that caused the soil and rock around the foundation of a building to turn almost to liquid.
When this happened whole buildings would tilt and slide on their foundations. If, and it was a big ‘if’, this effect could be created underneath Britain as the moving force was applied the slide could get started. So there it was the theoretical model all in place.
All that was needed was a practical plan, the resources to make the plan reality and the political will to make the resources needed available.
The Chief Scientific Officer phoned the Cabinet Office to see if he could get a slot on the agenda for a Cabinet Meeting. He was in luck, the response to “Winter Crisis” was going to be debated in Parliament in the next week or so. The Cabinet was keen to be able to talk about interventions they were investigating. His presentation would be heard on Thursday.
As it turned out he was pushing at an open door. The Government was keen, the plan used lots of existing resources that were considered, by many, to be a waste. It offered a chance to keep unemployment down. The key political factor, always the key factor, was that the Government, this party, would be seen to be improving the lives of every person in the country. Well, pretty much every person, there would be a few who would be anti the idea.
When the announcement was made by the Prime Minister, in response to a carefully prepared question from a Government Back-Bencher the world went crazy. The Russians accused the British of trying to colonise the Atlantic. The Americans took the contrary position offering technical assistance and protection from Russian aggression. The French were delighted that the perfidious Albion would be further away. Britain’s oldest and longest established ally Portugal were gleeful that their friends would be coming closer. They even suggested establishing the St Georges trading partnership. Both England and Portugal having St George as their national saint. The name was changed under a barrage of complaints from the Scots and Welsh.
The work started before the following summer. All along the south coast of England a Wales they started sinking huge concrete and steel anchoring posts which would be used to connect the tow ropes. All over the country drilling rigs were set up and holes were drilled thousands of feet into the ground. Hundreds and hundreds of holes drilled in each county, hundreds of holes punched deep underneath each and every city.
In the dockyards of Portsmouth, Plymouth, Portland, Sheerness, Chatham and Rosyth, mothballed and decommissioned ships had their engines overhauled and serviced. Unnecessary guns, armour plate and electronics were removed. Strong reinforced towing points were fitted to the sterns and sterns of corvettes, destroyers, cruisers and battleships. Later the same teams started on lend-lease liberty ships and troop carriers. Thousands of ships capable of generating millions of horsepower.
Inland the army was placing all the war surplus explosives in the hundreds of thousands of deep, deep holes in the ground. The huge industrial complexes that had built the bombs that rained down on Germany were back in business. This time, the bombs they were building were genuine “Earthquake” bombs.
The RAF was charged with all the communications and making sure that as much weight was airborne at the critical moments. They also flew as many people as possible to assorted Commonwealth and European countries for safety and to reduce the total mass of the ships would need to get moving.
New Year’s Day, January 1953 in a modified Lancaster bomber the new Queen pressed the big blue button that gave the command to the ships to start pulling. The ships moved forward taking the slack and stretch out of the ropes and chains anchoring them to the south coast.
Sixty seconds later a light flashed and the Queen pressed the big red button that detonated the thousands of bombs and charges deep underground. The whole country shook to its foundations but because of the care and precision in the positioning of the charges, there was little damage to buildings on the surface.
It was mid-February when they were able to confirm that Britain was nine inches further south than it had been. It had worked.
Many of the islands around Scotland. the Isle of Man, the Channel Islands and a few other little islands were not part of “The Move.” The populations had been offered the choice of relocating at some stage or joining a nearby country. The Orkneys decide to become part of Norway, they always claimed that Oslo was closer than London, so that was predictable.
January 1954 saw the distance moved up to 400 yards, things were very much as normal otherwise. During 1954, the country moved over 2 miles south. By 1960, the tow-ships were moving the country south and west by over 2 miles a month. In 1965 with mainland Britain now located offshore from the Bay of Biscay moving at very nearly a mile a week. The science team had calculated that the power being applied could be reduced and the motion allowed to slow. Most of the ships were in need of maintenance a so a rotation was organised to make sure that enough power was available to keep the speed up and provide direction while the remainder were overhauled.
In the country changes in public behaviour were becoming noticeable. Drunkenness was less common. The sociologists put this down to people moving outside. Instead of sitting close to the bar indoors to keep warm people were drinking in the pub gardens and drinking less. Café life was starting to appear with youths sitting in pavement cafes over a coffee discussing the merits of playing a 4-4-3, like Chelsea, as opposed to the traditional 4-3-4 line up still favoured by Manchester United.
People were also wearing less. Jackets and ties disappeared from casual wear for men. Ladies hemlines got higher and higher. British Naturism reported that as the summers got warmer and drier, membership of Nudist Clubs increased and appealed for more nudist beaches.
As Great Britain gradually lost momentum it continued to move south and west. The south coast passing to the west of Cape Finisterre by several hundred miles in 1969. Two parties were held the first one as London passed the Cape in early spring. The day turned out to be the warmest March day in the previous 100 years. People had parties on the banks of the Thames in London. In Brighton, over 1000 people turned up for the opening of a stretch of beach for naked swimming and sunbathing.
The second party was held on the same day in 1977 when Edinburgh passed the same latitude. The population of Great Britain nearly doubled for that week with people from all over the world came to party with Edinburgh.
A a nation the UK had become less hurried, less aggressive and generally a nicer and more tolerant place. The Government decided that for the long weekends of the “Move Parties” the opening hours could be relaxed, Pubs and bars could serve, non-intoxicated people, drinks from 10 am through to midnight. To avoid problems associated with people overheating or getting into conflict with the police because of simply taking off too much clothing the laws around nudity were changed. For the weekend simply being naked would not be a crime. Threatening or abusive behaviour would be taken more seriously if nudity was a part of the offence, but just being nude would not be an offence.
The world had changed a lot in the 8 years between the two parties. New industries had appeared and old ones passed. The British motor industry was following the motorcycle industry into oblivion. Computers were the new and upcoming thing, with ICL, Sinclair and the BBC in the forefront of this new science. The massive data requirements of managing The Move, which had initially involved thousands of slide rule wielding technicians was now run on one ICL machine and checked on another. A part work magazine helped people to write a basic programme that would enable the users of personal computers to follow the work of The Move Coordination team in their own homes.
In Europe, the Common Market had been formed and Britain had been excluded initially on the grounds that it might not be in Europe when it came to rest. As it became obvious that the stated destination was the real destination. Britain would have Portugal on its east coast and west coast it was definitely within Europe. Tourism from both France and Germany favouring the unique British offering of beach and culture in a single destination. As both countries were haemorrhaging currency to Britain negotiations began for British accession to the Common Market.
Ten years later The Move was virtually over. The drift was back to inches a month and decreasing rapidly. Most of Scotland was south of Santa Maria and Plymouth was only just north of Funchal the capital of Madeira. The climate was what you could call mild and others would call sub-tropical.
Not only had the weather changed beyond recognition. The changes in British industry had become embedded: Motorcycles were no longer built in Birmingham. Few cars came from Coventry. The Clyde shipyards had gone and there was no steel coming from Sheffield. Heavy industry had been replaced by tourism. Surf schools on the west coast, beach holidays on the east coast, hill walking in the north and water sports all along the south coast. London continued as a global cultural centre, the theatres, the opera, the historical tours and the Royal family continued to draw crowds. The UK was now Europe’s number one tourist destination.
Agricultural changes were even more marked. Scottish hills were covered in vines and their wines were improving year on year. On the plains and in the valleys of the north apples and cherries flourished. In Kent, the garden of England, the apples and cherries had been replaced with oranges and lemons, limes and avocados, kiwi fruit and winter strawberries.
Socially things had changed and remained the same. The British had become a more outdoor society. Cookouts were common. Alcohol consumption was down as people drank slower. People drank in pavement cafes and pub gardens instead of darkened pubs. Crimes of “violence against the person” decreased in line with the reduction of alcohol consumption and the amount clothing people were wearing. It is hard to be aggressive when flip-flops constitute your toughest footwear.
The key things that didn’t change were the great British eccentrics and the tolerance of eccentrics and ‘foreign’ cultures. The French, Germans and Scandinavians who wandered the streets and lanes were made welcome. The Americans and Japanese tourists continued to flock to Strafford with their cameras and were made welcome. Eccentrics of all types thrived, the spoon whittlers, the morris dancers, the sun worshippers and the cheese rollers all enjoy the freedoms allowed by the relaxing of legislation. Music festivals flourished in the sun. The beaches were filled with people of every hue and complexion, the dressed and the naked, the old and the young. They all mixed, young and old, black and white, the quick and the slow in bars and gardens, for parties and festivals, dancing and singing … One Britain unified in the sun!
****************
It is great, I am just so glad that my work on earthquakes was at the right stage and that I was able to contribute to The Move.
Christmas Day 1998
The forecast was the temperature to set to a very respectable 70 degrees. Not bad for Cambridge if you looked at the historical records. However, in terms of recent years it was unremarkable. Mid-summer temperatures of over 80 degrees had become commonplace ever since The Move had been completed.
The Move, I’ve decided to use the name for the project, including the capital letters, that was given to the popular press. That had been a stroke of genius, the official papers had named it “National Mobilisation” which smacked of the pre-war lack of planning.
I’m getting ahead of myself, the background to The Move was the second World War and the bitter winter of 1948. The massive cost and damage to the economy of the whole of Europe caused by World War 2 cannot be overstated. Rebuilding was a slow process as industries geared to make weapons of destruction were re-aligned for peace. A huge task even under ideal conditions.
The winter of 1948 had been far from ideal. In Britain alone, the bitter cold had killed thousands. People had gone hungry. All industrial activity had ground to a halt. The economic recovery from World War 2 was set back five years in five weeks. For Britain it was a disaster, another severe winter like that could destroy everything the country had achieved.
The Government struggled to find ways to ameliorate the situation. There was no money. There was not enough coal in the right places, it was trapped at the pit heads and docksides. The food arriving from around the world was trapped in the ports and could not be moved to the shops.
What could be done? What could they do? How do they prevent the cold killing people? How could they intervene to prevent snow and ice stopping the country?
“How could the Government prevent cold and snow causing death and chaos in Britain ever again?” The challenge sent to every university, every research facility, civil and military, and every policy think-tank in the country. The prize on offer for a workable solution was huge, financially, academically and socially. Fame, fortune and status awaited the team with the right idea.
The answers came back, sadly weak on ideas and thin on detail. The civil service panel of the great and good, set up to review the ideas, rejected them all in very short order.
The panel sat was reconvened to review what resources could be applied to solving the problems caused by a severe winter.
The list was fairly short; The army, but no petrol for the tanks. The air force, but no fuel for the planes. The navy, more ships than the navy could use in peacetime. And piles, no, mountains, of unburnt coal at the mines and ports. Not a lot of useful resouces, really.
That was until the Chief Science Officer from the committee overheard a conversation in the staff canteen. One of the juniors in the Department of War was trying to impress one of the typists.
“I wish I was back in ’ve Azores. I was vere in forty-four an’ forty-five” he boasted. “Even in winter, it was never less than 65 degrees. I kid yer not! I fink they should tow us sarf to find some nice wever!”
The CSO took a few moments to decipher the strong London accent. Eventually, he had most of it translated into the King’s English.
The Azores, a group of Portuguese Islands in the Atlantic. They are about 1000 miles south of London. The climate he recalled was pretty much that, a climate rather than wever, sorry weather. The seasons saw daily temperatures vary between 65 and 80 degrees. Moderate rainfall and few real storms. A nice place to avoid the cold and snow of the UK.
“Tow us sarf… South” he thought.
“Who could he mean by “they”?” he mused. The only towing he could think of was the barges being towed up and down the Thames by tugs. Then things started to click into place in his mind.
‘Boats pulling things…’
‘More ships than the Navy could use…’
‘Lots of coal at the ports…’
It was a silly idea, a very silly idea, it would never work, or would it?
*****************
Next morning, he set his team to work on the theoretical problems.
Two weeks later the Tech Team came back with an interim discussion paper. Subject to one condition it would be possible to tow the country. It would slow to start with but the speed would build up steadily as inertia was overcome. Then the problem would be trying to stop at the right place. That would be easy to calculate on the move as all the information could be updated on a daily basis using real data rather than a mathematical model.
The one condition was, however, a real biggie. They had to overcome the forces of friction.
The weight of the country was, as the scientist doing the briefing put it, “bloody huge!”. The surface area the weight was acting over was in the region of 90,000 square miles.
Either the mass had to be reduced, the surface area changed. Both were sort of constants given this was Britain. The only other option was to somehow change the coefficient of friction.
That was going to be a tricky one.
Three weeks later a young research student at Kings College, Cambridge identified the solution. He had been looking at data about earthquakes that revealed that it wasn’t just vibration that made buildings fall down. There was an effect that caused the soil and rock around the foundation of a building to turn almost to liquid.
When this happened whole buildings would tilt and slide on their foundations. If, and it was a big ‘if’, this effect could be created underneath Britain as the moving force was applied the slide could get started. So there it was the theoretical model all in place.
All that was needed was a practical plan, the resources to make the plan reality and the political will to make the resources needed available.
The Chief Scientific Officer phoned the Cabinet Office to see if he could get a slot on the agenda for a Cabinet Meeting. He was in luck, the response to “Winter Crisis” was going to be debated in Parliament in the next week or so. The Cabinet was keen to be able to talk about interventions they were investigating. His presentation would be heard on Thursday.
As it turned out he was pushing at an open door. The Government was keen, the plan used lots of existing resources that were considered, by many, to be a waste. It offered a chance to keep unemployment down. The key political factor, always the key factor, was that the Government, this party, would be seen to be improving the lives of every person in the country. Well, pretty much every person, there would be a few who would be anti the idea.
When the announcement was made by the Prime Minister, in response to a carefully prepared question from a Government Back-Bencher the world went crazy. The Russians accused the British of trying to colonise the Atlantic. The Americans took the contrary position offering technical assistance and protection from Russian aggression. The French were delighted that the perfidious Albion would be further away. Britain’s oldest and longest established ally Portugal were gleeful that their friends would be coming closer. They even suggested establishing the St Georges trading partnership. Both England and Portugal having St George as their national saint. The name was changed under a barrage of complaints from the Scots and Welsh.
The work started before the following summer. All along the south coast of England a Wales they started sinking huge concrete and steel anchoring posts which would be used to connect the tow ropes. All over the country drilling rigs were set up and holes were drilled thousands of feet into the ground. Hundreds and hundreds of holes drilled in each county, hundreds of holes punched deep underneath each and every city.
In the dockyards of Portsmouth, Plymouth, Portland, Sheerness, Chatham and Rosyth, mothballed and decommissioned ships had their engines overhauled and serviced. Unnecessary guns, armour plate and electronics were removed. Strong reinforced towing points were fitted to the sterns and sterns of corvettes, destroyers, cruisers and battleships. Later the same teams started on lend-lease liberty ships and troop carriers. Thousands of ships capable of generating millions of horsepower.
Inland the army was placing all the war surplus explosives in the hundreds of thousands of deep, deep holes in the ground. The huge industrial complexes that had built the bombs that rained down on Germany were back in business. This time, the bombs they were building were genuine “Earthquake” bombs.
The RAF was charged with all the communications and making sure that as much weight was airborne at the critical moments. They also flew as many people as possible to assorted Commonwealth and European countries for safety and to reduce the total mass of the ships would need to get moving.
New Year’s Day, January 1953 in a modified Lancaster bomber the new Queen pressed the big blue button that gave the command to the ships to start pulling. The ships moved forward taking the slack and stretch out of the ropes and chains anchoring them to the south coast.
Sixty seconds later a light flashed and the Queen pressed the big red button that detonated the thousands of bombs and charges deep underground. The whole country shook to its foundations but because of the care and precision in the positioning of the charges, there was little damage to buildings on the surface.
It was mid-February when they were able to confirm that Britain was nine inches further south than it had been. It had worked.
Many of the islands around Scotland. the Isle of Man, the Channel Islands and a few other little islands were not part of “The Move.” The populations had been offered the choice of relocating at some stage or joining a nearby country. The Orkneys decide to become part of Norway, they always claimed that Oslo was closer than London, so that was predictable.
January 1954 saw the distance moved up to 400 yards, things were very much as normal otherwise. During 1954, the country moved over 2 miles south. By 1960, the tow-ships were moving the country south and west by over 2 miles a month. In 1965 with mainland Britain now located offshore from the Bay of Biscay moving at very nearly a mile a week. The science team had calculated that the power being applied could be reduced and the motion allowed to slow. Most of the ships were in need of maintenance a so a rotation was organised to make sure that enough power was available to keep the speed up and provide direction while the remainder were overhauled.
In the country changes in public behaviour were becoming noticeable. Drunkenness was less common. The sociologists put this down to people moving outside. Instead of sitting close to the bar indoors to keep warm people were drinking in the pub gardens and drinking less. Café life was starting to appear with youths sitting in pavement cafes over a coffee discussing the merits of playing a 4-4-3, like Chelsea, as opposed to the traditional 4-3-4 line up still favoured by Manchester United.
People were also wearing less. Jackets and ties disappeared from casual wear for men. Ladies hemlines got higher and higher. British Naturism reported that as the summers got warmer and drier, membership of Nudist Clubs increased and appealed for more nudist beaches.
As Great Britain gradually lost momentum it continued to move south and west. The south coast passing to the west of Cape Finisterre by several hundred miles in 1969. Two parties were held the first one as London passed the Cape in early spring. The day turned out to be the warmest March day in the previous 100 years. People had parties on the banks of the Thames in London. In Brighton, over 1000 people turned up for the opening of a stretch of beach for naked swimming and sunbathing.
The second party was held on the same day in 1977 when Edinburgh passed the same latitude. The population of Great Britain nearly doubled for that week with people from all over the world came to party with Edinburgh.
A a nation the UK had become less hurried, less aggressive and generally a nicer and more tolerant place. The Government decided that for the long weekends of the “Move Parties” the opening hours could be relaxed, Pubs and bars could serve, non-intoxicated people, drinks from 10 am through to midnight. To avoid problems associated with people overheating or getting into conflict with the police because of simply taking off too much clothing the laws around nudity were changed. For the weekend simply being naked would not be a crime. Threatening or abusive behaviour would be taken more seriously if nudity was a part of the offence, but just being nude would not be an offence.
The world had changed a lot in the 8 years between the two parties. New industries had appeared and old ones passed. The British motor industry was following the motorcycle industry into oblivion. Computers were the new and upcoming thing, with ICL, Sinclair and the BBC in the forefront of this new science. The massive data requirements of managing The Move, which had initially involved thousands of slide rule wielding technicians was now run on one ICL machine and checked on another. A part work magazine helped people to write a basic programme that would enable the users of personal computers to follow the work of The Move Coordination team in their own homes.
In Europe, the Common Market had been formed and Britain had been excluded initially on the grounds that it might not be in Europe when it came to rest. As it became obvious that the stated destination was the real destination. Britain would have Portugal on its east coast and west coast it was definitely within Europe. Tourism from both France and Germany favouring the unique British offering of beach and culture in a single destination. As both countries were haemorrhaging currency to Britain negotiations began for British accession to the Common Market.
Ten years later The Move was virtually over. The drift was back to inches a month and decreasing rapidly. Most of Scotland was south of Santa Maria and Plymouth was only just north of Funchal the capital of Madeira. The climate was what you could call mild and others would call sub-tropical.
Not only had the weather changed beyond recognition. The changes in British industry had become embedded: Motorcycles were no longer built in Birmingham. Few cars came from Coventry. The Clyde shipyards had gone and there was no steel coming from Sheffield. Heavy industry had been replaced by tourism. Surf schools on the west coast, beach holidays on the east coast, hill walking in the north and water sports all along the south coast. London continued as a global cultural centre, the theatres, the opera, the historical tours and the Royal family continued to draw crowds. The UK was now Europe’s number one tourist destination.
Agricultural changes were even more marked. Scottish hills were covered in vines and their wines were improving year on year. On the plains and in the valleys of the north apples and cherries flourished. In Kent, the garden of England, the apples and cherries had been replaced with oranges and lemons, limes and avocados, kiwi fruit and winter strawberries.
Socially things had changed and remained the same. The British had become a more outdoor society. Cookouts were common. Alcohol consumption was down as people drank slower. People drank in pavement cafes and pub gardens instead of darkened pubs. Crimes of “violence against the person” decreased in line with the reduction of alcohol consumption and the amount clothing people were wearing. It is hard to be aggressive when flip-flops constitute your toughest footwear.
The key things that didn’t change were the great British eccentrics and the tolerance of eccentrics and ‘foreign’ cultures. The French, Germans and Scandinavians who wandered the streets and lanes were made welcome. The Americans and Japanese tourists continued to flock to Strafford with their cameras and were made welcome. Eccentrics of all types thrived, the spoon whittlers, the morris dancers, the sun worshippers and the cheese rollers all enjoy the freedoms allowed by the relaxing of legislation. Music festivals flourished in the sun. The beaches were filled with people of every hue and complexion, the dressed and the naked, the old and the young. They all mixed, young and old, black and white, the quick and the slow in bars and gardens, for parties and festivals, dancing and singing … One Britain unified in the sun!
****************
It is great, I am just so glad that my work on earthquakes was at the right stage and that I was able to contribute to The Move.