Disappearing world

Morse has gone (both the eponymous Inspector and the code) along with telegrams but people are curiously unwilling to banish that archaic device the Fax machine to the techno junkyard just yet. Grate blacking is something they do in the fireplaces at Beamish Museum and similar places because open coal fires fell victim to smokeless zones. String is seldom used for tying around packets and parcels, long ditched in favour of more convenient adhesive tape. If green string and twine clings to life in an agricultural setting, no such second innings has been enjoyed by sealing wax. As a youngster, the rationale behind sealing wax totally escaped me – why would anyone want to wax their ceiling?

Remembrance of times past runs the risk of forgetting negative aspects of life but in grid-locked Sunderland, I’m not going to hark back to the days of the trams, nor even the single decker buses (remember tokens?) but to the 1990’s. One complete anachronism was the Vaux Breweries horse drawn dray. Motorists (at the time) probably were less than enthusiastic but today I very much doubt that I’m the only one who would love to see them holding up the traffic once more.