Sunday 9 December 2012

50 Years Ago [2]

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But first:-
 Advent Alphabetical Almanac 

I is for Isaiah
Who was he? A prophet?

Then one of the angels flew down to me, carrying a burning coal that he had taken from the heavenly altar with a pair of tongs.

He touched my lips with the burning coal and said, “This has touched your lips, and now your guilt is gone, and your sins are forgiven.” Then I heard the Lord say, “Whom shall I send? Who will be our messenger?” Isaiah answered, “I will go! Send me!"

Isaiah tells of the weird vision that "called" him to become a prophet. It seems weird and far fetched to us, but whatever it was, it was certainly very real for him.

In the Bible, prophets did not just tell the future; they were the lifestyle gurus of religious life, warning people of the dire consequences of ignoring or disobeying God. Some clever people think that Isaiah was head of a sort of life-style and religious "gang"...

... and maybe, just maybe, several of the team contributed to the book that bears his name.

The most celebrated piece of his work is in Chapter 53 when he writes about someone who is given a very special job.


He endured the suffering that should have been ours,
the pain that we should have borne.
All the while we thought that his suffering
was punishment sent by God.
But because of our sins he was wounded,
beaten because of the evil we did.
We are healed by the punishment he suffered,
made whole by the blows he received.

Isaiah's words have a familiar ring about them, but were written some 700 years before Jesus was born.

Another co-incidence?
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Back to our blog from 50 years ago; see part 1 from yesterday (read again).
Eventually we managed to scramble off the ferry and I wondered where the town was. Dad told me there was a half-mile-long pier and we needed to get to the bottom of it. We could have walked, but the crowds of people waiting to go home were huge ...
... and we didn't fancy battling through that lot with our luggage. There was a funny looking steam train about to leave ...
... but Dad said that the queue was too long ...
... and we would be going on the tram.
There was still a huge queue there but they crammed about 500 people on the tram-thing. It didn't look like a tram, more like a bus and it changed gear like a bus. It had a little trolley for us to put our cases on. 

I found a train ticket and kept it as a souvenir ...


... and once we got to the town I asked Dad why we didn't catch the train all the way to Shanklin. He said the station was a long way from Mrs Miggins' and the bus would drop us nearly at the door. 

Mum said "lets take a taxi" but Dad got a bit grumpy and said it would cost too much. And there was a big queue.
A family that we met on the train from Waterloo told us they were going to St Clare's which sounded like a church. I didn't think a holiday would be much fun in a church. Where would you sleep? Anyway I saw them in a queue for some very posh coaches, with a boot for the luggage ...
... not like us, balancing our cases on our knees on the number 16 bus! We missed the first one as the queue was so long.
Dad said there would be time to go to the beach once we had dumped our cases at Mrs Miggins' and if I was good, he would buy me an ice cream. Mum said it would spoil my appetite for my tea and in the end we didn't get one.
the queue was too long.

[fbb comment : present-day readers may well be amazed at these two "blogs". Holiday-makers trekking to the Isle of Wight on a peak Saturday in August 1962 would have needed patience, resilience and a strong constitution. But they would have expected queues and been prepared for the inconvenience. Some of the pictures have their origin in a film produced for Mark Woodnutt (then the Island's M.P.) ...

... to try to persuade the government not to close the whole of the Island's rail network. The full film is available on a DVD in the "Isle of Wight Runaround" series but, sadly, fbb cannot find any on-line source. Most of the lines did close but the fears of gridlock were unfounded as the traditional fortnight's holiday trade was also disappearing. Nowadays the Saturday "changeover" barely exists with most coming by car for "long weekends" or "midweeks". Low season business is now almost entirely coach holidays with this time of year seeing "Tinsel and Turkey" parties ...

... paying excited visits to Garden Centres as everything else is closed! Bah, humbug?]

 Next Bus Blog : Monday 10th December 

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