Lest we forget

[GUT]

This might seem like a weird question but am I the only one who finds himself stopping to remember just how long ago the Whitechapel murders were? I think because we keep the case alive in our collective consciousness and look at it with modern-day thinking, it's easy to forget. We've had two World Wars, the splitting of the atom, and the moon landings, since that time. Victorian London might as well have been a completely different world.

Just a thought. I don't expect this to generate much buzz!

My great grandmother saw pretty much all those advancements, she’d talk in wonder of the first car, the plane and helicopter, man landing on the moon, electricity, running water amazed her every time she turned a tap on. (She was born in 1888)

[Mayerling]

Sadly I never met my great grandfather Ike or great grandmother (whose name was Becky, or Rebecca - not Rachel as I wrote earlier. Ike died in or about 1941, and his wife a few years later, and I was born in 1954. In fact, my English middle name of "Ira" is a version of the Hebrew name for "Isaac" (Yitzkok) that I was given in his honor (the tradition is to give a name for an honored ancestor). Isaac or Ike Wolf is from the English side of my family - his family were originally named Singer, and were in the leather glove trade in Birmingham.

Jeff

[harry]

My grandfather was born in the 1860's.Our lives overlapped by more than 20 years.

[GUT]

My great grandmother was born in 1888 and I knew her well.

[Mayerling]

Family tradition says that the grandparents of my mother (the parents of her mother) Ike and Rachel married in March 1888 in New York during the blizzard of 1888. It gives me a sense of perspective that four generations separate us from that year to me now in my own family (six in my sisters, as she is now a grandmother herself).

Jeff

[c.d.]

I never really think of 1888 as being that long ago. I think part of the charm of the case for me is that it is old enough that I can appreciate the uniqueness of the times but not so old that I can't relate in any way.

c.d.

[c.d.]

It's relative, Harry. I'm 62 and I probably have more chance of understanding a 20-year-old man from 1888 than I have of understanding a 62-year-old woman from the present.

Hello Robert,

You could have saved time and just said woman period. No need for age or year.

c.d.

[MrBarnett]

1955 is an excellent vintage.

[Robert]

It's relative, Harry. I'm 62 and I probably have more chance of understanding a 20-year-old man from 1888 than I have of understanding a 62-year-old woman from the present.

[DirectorDave]

I think we do forget what has been achieved since then sometimes...but the over-riding thought at looking back at the Vicorians is that we are standing on the shoulders of giants.

Without their zeal, inventiveness and reform, we are nothing....and when I say "we" I am not just talking about the UK...I'm talking about half our planet.

They had their wars too we should not forget and new weapons too and the people who lost their lives in them were no less dead, or loved than their counterparts in the wars still to come.

[Harry D]

This might seem like a weird question but am I the only one who finds himself stopping to remember just how long ago the Whitechapel murders were? I think because we keep the case alive in our collective consciousness and look at it with modern-day thinking, it's easy to forget. We've had two World Wars, the splitting of the atom, and the moon landings, since that time. Victorian London might as well have been a completely different world.

Just a thought. I don't expect this to generate much buzz!