173. Travelling backwards
Why what I'm used to will always be the comfortable option for my inner child.
In which Rebecca finds that going forwards isn’t her first choice.
Dear Reader,
I published a version of this post last July, and I’m sharing the story again now in my ‘Old gold’ series. If you’re reading it for the first time, I hope you enjoy it. If you’ve been a subscriber since before this time last year, thank you for reading it again.
Love,
Rebecca
Travelling backwards, and why what I'm used to will always be the comfortable option for my inner child.
My habit of going around in circles is entirely involuntary, but on a shoot at a botanical garden I was reminded of my liking for travelling backwards.
We had found ourselves and our gear being ferried around on an electric buggy. And we were grateful: there was a lot of ground to cover – not just geographically, but photographically – and today we’d much rather be driven than walk.
At first we were three on a buggy which could seat six: four facing forwards, two facing backwards. Jim sat in the front passenger seat of the buggy, his client at the wheel, and I was sitting directly behind them. On this sunshine-and-showers day, I was clutching two raincoats and grasping the 50cm diameter sleeve that housed a cleverly-folded reflector disc. Jim’s second camera was nestled – I hoped securely – in my lap.
Because models were going to be needed to pose for Jim’s lens, later two other people joined us on board.
‘I’ll sit at the back!’ I announced, with excitement. ‘Really?’ came the response. ‘You want to ride backwards?’
Reader, I did.
As a very small child I’d been envious of my older-than-me twin cousins, whose mother drove a Volvo estate car with two rear-facing seats in the boot space. On a trip to a safari park we took two cars in convoy, and I jealously watched their faces looking out at us into our car behind. As a very small person, I felt that their journey backwards was the height of travel sophistication.
Having a go on the swing boats at the funfair would be a highlight of my childhood summers. My brother and I would sit opposite each other, each holding our own pull rope to get us higher and higher.
The backwards trajectory would always be a thousand times more exciting than the forwards one: the way my tummy would be left behind on the too-fast, too-curved backswing always made me gasp and giggle. Thinking about it again now I’m regretting not having been more interested in physics at school: I wonder what Google can tell me what was going on there?
The ride experiences a linear velocity and an angular velocity due to traveling in an arc. The linear velocity in an arc requires the use of gravity, the length of the pendulum arm, and the degrees of the arc because of potential and kinetic energy being converted into each other.
Taken from IdeaExchange@UAkron
Okay, that’s enough. Thanks, Google.
Whenever we took the train as a family of four, tickets would be booked in advance, with seats reserved.
‘Here we are!’ one of my parents would say, arriving at one of those British Rail 1980s aluminium-trimmed Formica tables with two facing bench seats for two – upholstered in one of the eye-grating fabrics of the time – arranged opposite each other.
‘Over there, you two. This side is ours.’
It is a truth universally acknowledged that the younger members of a family don’t get to call many shots, and my brother and I would always travel backwards on the train. I’m not sure I ever even noticed at the time. We’d be reading our books, playing ‘I Spy’, squabbling over who’d get to sit next to the view – and ‘is it tiiiiime to swap yet? – and gazing out of the windows as we rattled along the rails.
I loved to daydream as I looked out of the window whenever it was my brother’s turn for the aisle seat, propping up my bear against the glass so that we could watch the world whizz past together.
Years later, Dad’s birthday treat to celebrate a milestone number had been to take us all first class on the Bluebell Railway, a heritage steam railway in rural Sussex. In a nostalgic nod to those much earlier trips, I’d brought a couple of friends along for the ride. Here they are:
As had been usual in the old days, we had a quad of facing seats, and sat in opposite pairs. The idea had been for Mum and Dad to travel forwards on the outbound trip, and my brother and I would then have the benefit of facing forwards on the return journey. And because we were going out and back, nobody would need to get up and swap.
Reader, I did swap. I didn’t need the perceived-by-others luxury of facing forwards; on that day, backwards was the way for me and my inner child.
On our rare trips to the capital when I was a youngster we would sometimes hail a black cab, and I’d always dive for one of the rear-facing fold-down seats with their back to the driver’s part of the vehicle. I’d hang onto a ceiling strap that I could only just reach, but I remember always loving riding in a taxi through London backwards on one buttock, my overstretched locked-out elbow straining from my strap-hanging posture. I couldn’t ever see where I was going, but that wasn’t ever important at the time. At that age it would never be up to me to be in charge of such things.
Thankfully my parents had – and still have, in fact – a much better handle on direction and navigation than I do. I wonder what went wrong there? 😉
Reader, I’m used to travelling forwards, sideways, and yes, round in circles more often than I’d like. But on a train, my inner child will still be comfortable travelling backwards.
Love,
Rebecca
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I know someone else who prefers to travel backwards. Love the drawing. Handmade paper? That's impressive. Do you think one of these days you might describe the process? Thanks for the mention.
The photo of you and cousins in the back of the Volvo is old gold for sure. We had a rear-facing 3rd seat in a brand new station wagon that had its initial voyage to Expo 67, the World's Fair in Montreal, Canada. One of my sisters used to get car sick, so the contenders for the "way back" were my other sister and 2 brothers. Great to read this post again, RH. P.S. Love the bears drawing and the paper looks fab!