"Simon Mason" <
[email protected]> wrote in message
news:
[email protected]...
> From our local Bygones paper:
> http://www.swldxer.co.uk/zbygone.jpg
>
> Nice to see the Elswick Hopper cycle works in Lincolnshire in full
> production in the 50's. (Btm Right)
> I had to keep the full page spread so it is 1000 pixels across.<
Yes, indeed! - those were the days! - A prosperous empire, a domestic
mono-culture, and a thriving cycle industry.
Of course, the empire *was* largely the root of all this happiness -
particularly in the case of the cycle industry, who ramped up production to
meet the needs of happy smiling natives and comically important Indian civil
servants.
"One day, Matumbo, if you continue to serve the white man faithfully and
well, you may save enough money to buy a Raleigh all-steel bicycle of your
very own"
The idyll crumbled when malign forces put it into Matumbo's head that,
instead of saving up for the latest in rod brakes and three speed
Sturmey-Archer gearing, he could get himself an AK47 automatic rifle
instead - thereby eventually bagging himself a Mercedes Benz instead of a
bike.
It's a tragic irony that Matumbo ended up with neither cycle nor Merc - nor
running water, electricity, functioning sanitation, or even food.
Better a colonial governor and a Raleigh sit-up-and-beg, than the horrors of
mass graves opened by despots! - something which the endlessly chattering,
endlessly self-satisfied, liberals conveniently ignore.
