2035

In January 2000 I wrote this to my unborn son looking towards the future when he would be a similar age that I was at that time:

There will be many changes in 35 years time, but one thing that will not change is the fact that I love your mother and no matter what happens I always will with every piece of my heart. Hopefully we will provide a constant for you in this rapidly changing world.

To give you some idea of the speed of change,  I was born in 1967, at that time there were no mobile phones, no fax machines; the telephone was not commonplace in domestic houses; computers were not commonplace; credit cards were just being launched; coinage was L.s.d. (not a drug, but pounds, shillings and pence); chicken was a luxury meat eaten once or twice a year; not every household had a car; television was black and white; sun screen was hardly ever used; Spalding had a hospital with a maternity department; Peterborough was a town; it was the norm to rent houses rather than buy; and Auntie Marion was 4 years old and carrying an inflatable Noddy (a children's character created by Enid Blyghton).

What of the future. By 2035 my hair will be thinner, my eyes dimmer and my head wiser. What you'll make of your old Dad heaven knows! One thing that is certain is change. The predictions I make are in no particular order and it will be fun to see if I am right.

Agriculture will just begin to recover from a thirty year decline similar to that of the 1930's. Much of the prime silt land will be owned by large farms and corporations. Lower grade land will be derelict overgrown scrub. This will have a knock-on effect causing wildlife, particularly birds and invertebrates to thrive. Flooding will increase, not due to climatic change, but due to poor maintenance and management of flood control and drainage. We will be paying the price of cost-cutting and centralisation. Spalding will have experienced a flood of the town center caused by the decision to flood Cowbit Wash not being taken quickly enough. Increased building will have increased the amount of water flowing down the various rivers into the Wash. The riverside properties at places like Market Deeping will experience frequent flooding and there will be call for flood relief measures. Some idiots will be proposing to build on Cowbit Wash! Hope you can swim better than your father!

The recovery of agriculture from its depression will come from the fact that the country will be hungrier. There will have been over the last 30 years a large growth of population primarily as the result of migration of people from Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia. People will migrate from Eastern Europe to avoid famine and disease caused by conflict. People will migrate from Africa through fear. In Africa there will be a de-colonization of Europeans and their descendants as their societies prove unable to integrate. Britain will be paying the price of its Imperialist past as whites flee to Europe in fear of their lives as a form of black facism grips southern and central Africa. The migration from Asia will be the result of War. There will be a power struggle between China, Russia and America. Taiwan will be under China with much of he Taiwanese electronics industry migrating to Britain and America. Japan will be in fear of invasion from China ensuring its development of industry in America and Europe. Eastern Europe will be subject to conflict where land, air and water will have been poisoned by poor management of industry in the post World War 2 period and more recent conflict affecting nuclear facilities. Diseases, particularly T.B. will rear their ugly head. The migration of people will bring great public health problems to Britain. We will be paying the price for current cuts in immunization and over use of antibiotics. The bill for immunization will be picked up by large corporations that want to maintain a healthy work force.

Pollution will cause fertility problems that are just beginning to be identified in fish with fewer male fish and increased hermaohrodites. This will start becoming apparent in humans with reduced male fertility and more girls than boys being born. Birth rates will also drop as mire people decide not to have children. Aids will have brought some African countries to a state of collapse with the majority of their populations being HIV positive. Whilst there will be no cure for Aids an inoculation will have been developed that protects against infection.

It will be discovered that certain diseases and even viruses have been created by man, either through genetic science or man's chemical interference with nature.

The first person to receive a body organ grown out of their own tissue will receive a transplant. There will be a great shortage of blood caused by increasing population, increase in viruses and increased drug usage.

The misuse of drugs will increase massively. We will be the price for being too tolerant of drugs at present. Increase in crime and violence will result. Because of the epidemic problem punishment of drug offences will increase, but too late. However, because of these problems in yet another twenty years or so there will be a moral backlash as society reforms itself to survive.

The religious colour and mix of Britain will change. The Church of England will have an increasingly shrinking congregation as it fails to stick to principles and attempts to please everybody. Its prayer book will have recently adopted a "marriage" ceremony for people of the same sex. This will be the last straw for many. Roman Catholic congregations will grow as will other Christian denominations. Islam will grow. There will be more mosques in Britain. Jews, Israel and Judaism will not be popular because of the way they have treated Palestinians and Israel's ruthless usage of nuclear weapons with disregard for civilians. There will be an increase in sects, particularly anything that is close to the natural world, as people seek to escape technology.

Technology will have altered our day to day lives. In the 20th Century electricity was the largest thing to touch our day to day lives. It gave us safe, clean light at the touch of a switch. It warmed our homes and cooked our food. It enabled us to speak to someone the other side of the world, or even off the earth! It enabled the delivery of news and entertainment into every house via radio and television. Electricity will continue to be the main energy behind our 21st century lives.

Gas central heating and cooking will not be commonplace. Cleaner and healthier electricity will dominate. Today's ceramic and halogen electric jobs will be replaced by magnetic induction hobs that boil pans whilst remaining cool themselves. Electric irons will also be using magnetic induction. Electric light bulbs will be smaller in size but provide good light. Increasingly common will be light bulbs that emit light after they have been switched off providing they have been charged for a sufficiently long enough period. Advancement in fluorescent technology will provide this. 

Our primary source of current entertainment, the television, will be totally transformed and will probably not exist in the format that we know it. The television is currently a box about 3 feet wide and 2 foot high that stands in the corner of our lounge (will you know imperial measures?). Beneath it lays a video recorder that works by storing programs on magnetic tape. On top of that is a Nintendo 64, A video game console - no doubt you'll be playing with the Nintendo 3000 virtual reality machine. Currently we can receive five main television channels via an analogue signal received by an aerial on the roof. Many people are now receiving hundreds of channels either from a satellite dish or their existing analogue aerials. Believe me 5 stations is plenty. When I was little there were only three stations, BBC1 and BBC2 provided by the British Broadcasting Corporation and ITV. The British Broadcasting Corporation was, and currently still is funded by a tax on television called he T.V. licence. Technically this is a licence to transmit as all televisions currently transmit a signal that is a byproduct of its operation. People not paying this license are tracked by the signal. ITV is the Independent Television network that is supplied by a series of regional companies, in our case Yorkshire Television and Anglia Television. They are funded by advertising which is normally shown about every 15 minutes. In the early 1980's Channel 4, A second independent channel, was founded, followed by Channel 5 in the late 90's. Although all five channels show similar programs e.g. they all have the news, each has its own features summarized as follows: BBC1 - repeats, BBC2 educated, ITV a mixture, Channel 4 art and cutting edge programs, Channel 5 the rejected programs from the other four plus sex. Analogue TV is due to be phased out by 2010 therefore you will experience the joy of hundreds of channels on your flat screen TV that is now so light and thin it can hang on the wall. Indeed it is not a television as we know it today. It combines several functions. It is a television, a personal computer, a telephone and a video recorder all combined. You will have a cordless keyboard that enables you to use the computer, send emails, shop, bank and even work from home.The telephone will be tied into this having a small  digital camera that enables callers to see each other as they speak. The video recorder as we know it will be extinct with programs stored digitally within the television. Digital information will be able to be downloaded with whole films, music albums or family photos stored on an integrated circuit cartridge no bigger than today's credit card. The potential media power  created by this technology is frightening and akin to George Orwell's 1984. The network provider will know what we watch, who we phone, what we buy and even what we look like!  Most music purchases will be downloaded off the net. This will free artists from the restrictions of the record companies and should make the music scene very exciting. The big record companies already realise this and are spending millions in American court rooms trying to suppress the hijacking of music on the internet. They might as well shovel sand with a teaspoon.

As digital television develops the way it is funded will change. There will be no TV licence. Instead TV will be funded by subscription, pay to view, and advertising. The British Broadcasting Corporation will become a PLC. The government will pay the BBC to provide basic non-profit making functions as a public service. 

You will still listen to radio in much the same way as today. However, in addition you will have digital radio which will perform a juke box like function allowing you to choose what to listen to.

Houses will start to be in short supply, especially in towns like Spalding as there continues a migration of people from cities, an increased population, and the increasing trend for people to live alone. There will be an increasing trend for people to build their own homes as escalating costs exclude a larger proportion of the population from the housing market. There will also be an increasing market in prefabricated homes. However, the current preference for brick and wood will still continue. Homes will get smaller with more terraced and attached houses.

Cars will be smaller with heavy usage of plastic. Electric powered cars and mopeds will be popular in urban areas. Petrol will be replaced by a cleaner alcohol type substance derived from an organic source such as sugar beet. Public transport will still be poor.

So that's enough of my vision into the future. Not too scary. Most of us muddle our way through the future making the most of what it throws at us. A few of us change the future sometimes in a little way and sometimes great. Whatever, make the most of it and enjoy life.