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Column
www.ilkestonlife.com ILKESTON LIFE December 2021 15

am delighted to report that Letter from America in Suffolk, but in this case, the
I after a six month wait, I have mounds covered long buried towns
finally received my provisional and cities. Good archaeology is
driver’s license from the DVLA, IT IS destructive. It is the process of re-
moving layer after layer of history,
along with my official UK Res- and so you would go through the
idence Card, which the DVLA present to the Crusaders, deeper
required as further proof I am no WRITTEN still to the Islamic to the Roman to
longer an ‘alien’ and a therefore the Greeks and so on.
not a threat to national security. What we exhumed, for the most
It is now only a matter of time be- part was the detritus of a city that
fore I can start taking my driving Michael Rosenblum had been sacked or abandoned;
lessons followed eventually by the the inhabitants taking the good
big one - the test to get my full stuff with them when they fled or
UK license. Manhattan for more than 17 years was famous for always carrying word will soon vanish. In the losing it to the waves of invaders
I would like to have started the now, and so there is a lot to pack a book with him. Of course, this United States more than 2,000 – mostly broken bits of pottery.
classes today, but as we’re back up, or get rid of – these events was in the days before iPhones. local newspapers have closed You can tell a lot from the pottery
in New York, I will have to wait being great moments for clearing As I have spent my life in the in the past decade. More are to shards. But once, I found one that
until the end of the month when out the accumulated detritus of a media/tech world, many of my follow. They have been replaced had writing on it. These are called
we return to the green and pleasant lifetime that you once thought you friends are mystified at my fixation with a new digital age, in which ostraca. They are rare but not
land of manual gear changing and ‘might need one day’, after all - and love for physical books. everything is made of arranged unknown.
steering wheels on the side where one never knows. “Why keep them when you can electrons neatly arranged on a It is an almost religious moment
my passenger usually sits. The biggest thing to pack up (as have them all on your iPad?” they screen – whether in for text or to sit a few meters down in the
We are in New York because we thankfully the buyers are taking ask. But to me, as I fill cardboard images video. Long strings of middle of what was once a vibrant
had to come back to pack up our the place fully furnished), is my box and after cardboard box, there zeros and ones. Of course, this Roman street and touch the writing
NY apartment. We had to pack books. I have, over the course of is something inherently differ- is both cheaper to produce and that someone placed on a piece of
it up because we have sold it. In a lifetime, accumulated more than ent about a hard-covered book. vastly less expensive to distribute; pottery two thousand years ago. It
1519, when the Spanish conquis- 2,000 of them, (not counting the When I read, I like the weight of easier to manipulate than ink on is a direct and physical bridge to
tador Hernando Cortez landed in ones that are already in the UK), a book. I like the feel of the paper. paper. But there is a price to pay the past; a powerful almost person-
the New World with 600 men, he and that is a lot to pack up and I like the smell of it. I like to for all things. As Clarence Darrow al connection between you and the
famously burned his ships so there move. write small notes in the margins said in his closing remarks on the long-dead writer.
would be no going back. We have John Adams, second President or underline things. Years later, Scopes Monkey Trial in Tennes- Two thousand years from now,
done the same, though far less dra- of the United States and a leader when an idea strikes me, I can still see in 1925 while addressing the if some archaeologist uncovers
matically. On November 28th we in the American Revolution (or find the book and the page where subject of teaching evolution in the remnants of our own age,
will board our one-way BA flight perhaps as I should now start to I first read it, even if it was by schools– “You sir, may conquer there will be, if trends continue,
back to the UK to start an entirely call it, the terrorist insurrection now many years ago. That is the the air, but the birds will lose their precious little for them to find.
new life, totally committed (and against Crown and Country) wrote beauty of the physical world. It is wonder, and the clouds will stink All our words and images, all our
able to drive!). in 1781, “You will never be alone always there. of gasoline.” dreams and thoughts, recorded in
We have lived in this apartment in with a poet in your pocket.” He As I remove volume after volume We may replace the printed word long strings of zeros and ones will
from the shelf and place them into with digital zeroes and ones, and have migrated to space – random
electrons in a random world. Lost
Factory units are given the month: the boxes for shipment to the UK, the book that John Adams always forever.
Next
each book reminds me of the time
carried in his pocket with an
And so, I am bringing my books.
go-ahead despite concerns A shopper when I read it. It is a highway of iPhone, but to my mind something Old friends, as John Adams would
fundamental is lost in this rather
my life’s experiences, in a way,
have said, to the new world. There;
laments
the loss of paved with paper and ink, and they radical transformation of society. God willing, I shall continue dis-
are friends that I will take with me
For many years, when I was
wo factories are to The area is close to the Ilkeston to the old world, which is now my young, I worked as a dig photogra- covering the subtleties of English
Tbring fresh jobs to Il- Manners industrial site and Co-op new world. PH note: I think that pher on archaeological excavations life, manual gear changing and
keston when they are built cllr Paul Shelton told the Depart- is a hugely emotive paragraph that in the Middle East. You would the untold terrors of navigating
on former playing fields. committee: “People in resi- ment says so much in just 67 words. start with a Tel, a mound of earth, Derby’s Pentagon Island from the
The site is circled by trees dential properties are hoping store We are now rapidly moving into much like the mound that covered passenger seat.
and has been a haven for it will continue to be green a world in which the printed the famous ship at Sutton Hoo
wildlife including the dingy fields. But this is proposed
skipper, one of Derbyshire’s for business bringing more
rarest butterflies. employment to Ilkeston.
But the county’s wildlife “If we start refusing this sort
trust said the species could of application, we might as
be attracted to the nearby well go home.”
Manor Floods nature re- We need jobs
serve, where improvements
are planned. Cllr John Frudd hopes that
Erewash Planning Commit- people would be able to
tee approved the building of walk to work in the new
the two units off Manners units and added: “We need
Avenue. One is listed for jobs.”
general industry while the In a report to councillors,
other is for storage and planning officers wrote:
distribution. “While its last use was as
A note of concern came a playing field, this was at
from a man who recently least 20 years ago and there
moved into a house on Scol- appears no intention to
lins Court, which is among recommence that use.
the homes nearest to the “The proposal could not
site. He feared that factory meaningfully be said to re-
noise could disrupt his life. sult in loss of playing fields
or functional open space.”
Public Right of way Anti-noise fencing will
And cllr James Dawson told surround the site nearest
members: “There is some homes and lighting columns
concern about the public will be fitted with cowling
right of way which crosses to prevent its spread. Cycle
the site’s main entrance.” sheds will also be provided
The committee was told to encourage staff to leave
that this would remain with cars at home.
safety measures for people
on foot.