by
Frank Hatton

I was recently reading in my newspaper, that quite a number of the states in the U.S.of A, have voted against metrication. In fact some, who have already had the road signs marked in Kilometres, have now pulled them down, and reverted to miles..... my best wishes,... ardent admiration,...congratulations,...and heartfelt thanks go to each and every one of you who have participated in this very wise decision. It is about time that somebody dug their heels in, and said a resounding 'NO' to the insidious advance of this alien system of measurement. Those of you who have been reading this column for some while will possibly recall that I have protested long and hard on the subject of how our very society has been changed over recent years. Our inches, feet and yards, have been replaced by millimetres, centimetres, and metres. Our miles are moving to kilometres, and our petrol (gas)is now sold in litres instead of gallons. Our supermarkets sell things in grams and kilos, no more do we see lbs. and ounces, and our beers, wines and spirits are now listed in litres and centilitres. Even our wonderful system of currency, which at one time was the most frustrating calculation ever inflicted upon our overseas visitors, has now gone forever, and our pounds, shillings and pence regretfully degenerated into a very basic decimal scheme. At the moment, we are embroiled in a very fierce publicity battle between the sections of our government who are in favour of our throwing the British pound away completely, and moving to the new Euro currency, and the anti Euro section, who want nothing to do with what is proving to be a weak, unstable launch of the Euro. It's probably my age group, but, I am completely against these moves to put our country into a melting pot, along with all of the other European members of the E.E.C.. We have survived quite well by ourselves for a long time, and I for one find that since we have tied our economy to Europe, we have lost many of the good things in the British way of life. Even our laws and our legal system are subject to the approval of the bureaucrats of Brussels. Most sections of the media are telling us, that as much as a lot of us don't like the idea of belonging to the E.E.C., we haven't any real alternative , in that we cannot survive as an independent country. There was in fact a small article in my daily newspaper, which stated that some sort of overtures had been made to invite the U.K. to join the USA/Canada, (and I think South America) trade alliance. I seriously feel that this would be a far better option. At least, nobody would want to interfere with our legal system, measurements, and other familiar parts of our traditional history. Plus, most of us speak the same basic laguage.

We are fast moving up to become the fourth largest economy in the world, and our employment record is the best in Europe. Our money is strong, our standards of living, education, and health care, are high, so why we should jeopardise all of this by tying ourselves to mixture of strong and weak economies and risk a drastic lowering of our way of life, I fail to understand. Perhaps, having given vent to my feelings, you will now accept my apprehension on the changes which have not only taken place, but also those that are yet to come. Maybe the answer will be for me to move to a country which continues to maintain the old established and familiar way of life.

Moving to a lighter note. My wife was recently out with her sister on a shopping expedition, and they happened to meet a man and his wife who, while my wife's sister had seen them quite frequently, my wife herself had not seen them for quite a number of years. After the usual greetings had taken place, my wife's sister nodded toward my wife and said to the man, "You remember my sister Audrey don't you?" He in turn looked at my wife, and said, "That's never your Audrey!", and then said to his wife, "Oh, Peggy, this is Audrey, she used to be so lovely." It's taken me several weeks to rebuild her shattered confidence.

Finally. my apologies for a somewhat shorter than usual article this month, but, our lady editor has demanded two contributions for July, to get the September issue in the bag early. My poor old brain is just not geared to the extra workload..

'til next time,
Frank Hatton

I would love to hear from you so email me.

You can find more articles in the archive under From Over the Pond