20th century boy

Note, this is a blog post I originally wrote in September 2011 when I lived in Davis, California. It was written shortly after I heard the news that my grandad had died. It was originally posted on the website of the local newspaper (the Davis Enterprise).

December 27, 1918.

Sometimes, when we see dates like this, it is not always possible to truly comprehend the passage of time that has elapsed since that point in history. Let us consider what things would be like if you were born on this date, and you found yourself entering the world at this early part of the twentieth century. How would your life be different if you were a child born only weeks after the first world war had ended?

To begin with, you would be around to experience all of the world-changing events that occurred in the early part of the 20th century.  Most significantly, you would live through both the Great Depression and World War II. You would witness the technological miracles of the age: movies with sound, television, commercial radio, refrigerators, frozen food, and transatlantic flight, to name but a few.

Can you even conceive what your life would be like without these things that we take for granted today? If you were born on this date in the United Kingdom, then you might also have lived under four different monarchs and eighteen different Prime Ministers.

December 27, 1918 was the day that a boy called Dennis was born. Like many of his generation, he was very much a local man and the vast majority of his life was spent in the same house in the same town — a town whose population would experience a more than five-fold increase in his lifetime.

His family had long been established in the local area — at least as far back as the mid-18th century. Although his surname would remain relatively common in his home town, one of his more distant relations would achieve great sporting fame on the other side of the planet.

Sometimes I wonder what someone like Dennis, a man who had never travelled overseas, would make of a city like Davis, California. Despite the large differences in culture between an old English market town and a small, modern California city, I think Dennis would like it here.

He came from a farming family and spent many years working for a local fruit processing company. He was also a keen gardener and had his own allotment for many years. He also kept chickens. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I think that Dennis would have liked Davis very much indeed. Although he was better known to his friends as “Johnny,” to me he was more simply known as “Grandad.”

RIP Dennis “Johnny” Bradnam
December 27 1918 – September 6 2011