Lest It Be Forgotten After I Am Gone: Comparisons - 3
Raymon Benedyk recalls seeing the German airship Hindenberg flying over London.
In the late twenties and early thirties, airplanes in flight were still a somewhat new sight. Don't forget that the first heavier than air flight had only taken place in 1906, and even during the first world war had been considered an innovation with limited use. So, less than thirty years later, the sight of one in the sky chugging along at perhaps not a great height at not a great speed, brought the whole street to a standstill with pedestrians, young and old alike, staring up to the heavens to watch this wondrous invention miraculously somehow staying up there.
One late evening in 1934, another wondrous sight came over London. It was the German airship Hindenberg on its maiden flight to America. It was a huge cigar shaped monster illuminated by criss-crossing searchlights, and again London came to a standstill. It seemed so close you could almost touch it. Terrible to think that when it arrived over New York a day or two later it blew up killing most of the passengers and crew.
The policeman was always your friend and one got to know him by name and he knew yours. He was another one who could be relied upon to help. There were more of them on the beat patrolling 'their patch' on foot and, at night, when doing their 'round', they would check every shop door to ensure it was locked properly. The police were obeyed by good and bad alike, and even criminals would give up running away when ordered to stop by a policeman.
Although traffic lights were in existence in those days, most were controlled by a policeman seated in a booth at the side of the junction. Most major road traffic intersections were controlled by a policeman 'on point duty' standing at the centre of the intersection, and it was he who decided which line of vehicles should get priority at the crossing. It was only a very gradual process that saw more and more traffic lights become automated.
Telephones were still a fairly rare possession for the not so affluent in the early thirties, and these of course were not mobile in any way. If you had one you were fortunate and it was costly to run. You lifted the receiver off its cradle and put it to your ear to hear a voice ask you "number please?" - no dialling mechanism in the early days. You spoke into the mouthpiece of the instrument and gave the number you required and, if you were lucky, you got through to the person you wanted. And the phone was not always placed in the most convenient of places, sometimes in a hallway with no seat available to enable a long conversation to comfortably take place. By the end of the decade, people could have extensions and had them in their living rooms as well as bedrooms too.
In the twenties and early thirties only the very affluent owned a car, and a good number who did employed a chauffeur to drive it. In consequence the number of privately owned cars on the road in those days was, compared to today, infinitesimal, maybe a 1,000,000 or so then to maybe 30,000,000 today. Driving was much slower and leisurely and, in consequence far more pleasant. Rarely did a car have a maximum speed showing on its speedometer in excess of 60 mph - which it could not always reach anyway - and, more often than not, cruised along comfortably at maybe 35 or 40 mph. It maybe took longer to get to your destination, but it did not always matter.
In those days too, the yellow uniformed AA (Automobile Association) patrolman on his similarly coloured motorbike and sidecar, was always available to assist those drivers in need of his assistance - who were of course members of the Association. But then, two guineas a year (two pounds ten pence) for membership was affordable by those who could afford a car! Another advantage of being a member was the warning system they operated. In those days, a patrolman would salute any car displaying the coveted AA badge on the front of the car. However, if he did not, it was meant to warn the drivers of a police speed trap ahead. The speed restriction of 30 mph on specific roads was imposed from about 1935 when the new Minister of Transport; Mr Leslie Hoare-Belisha, brought in a whole raft of new driving regulations along with driving tests, the passing of which enabled one to apply for and receive a licence to drive and, of course, the Belisha Beacon and pedestrian crossings, still in use today.
