I is for INCH

The other day it suddenly occurred to me that, despite the blaze of publicity and hype surrounding the centimetre that has allowed it to be our main unit of measurement for the last thirty or so years, the humble inch has not been forgotten, nor has its close allies, the foot, yard and mile. One of our school caretakers and myself were working out the dimensions of an external noticeboard that we hoped to purchase and as I measured the length and width using a metre ruler, he was already converting it to feet and inches and admitted that the metric system is not for him. Indeed he would have many bedfellows in the building trade who still measure everything in the old imperial units and for whom centimetres and metres are just a hindrance that has to be converted into something they know. The inch itself seems to have originally been a measure of the width of a thumb, while the foot was the length of an average human adult's foot and the yard the distance from the tip of the nose to the top of the middle finger of an outstretched hand. So no need to carry a tape measure around - as long as you were a bit of a contortionist! Yes those were the days, when twelve inches made a foot,three feet made a yard as did thirty six inches and you needed the magic number of sixty three thousand, three hundred and sixty of the little blighters to make a mile. Yes, everything we had learned and used for all those years was taken away in the pursuit of being the same as everywhere else in Europe. Why they even replaced our acre with a hectare, yet when I look out over our farm fields, I know exactly by the size of a field , just how many acres are there but hectares is an area I've never explored with any confidence. One of our most famous politicians will be long remembered for his 'not an inch' policy though many would suggest he has moved more than a centimetre in recent times. Still I suppose that's not as far as an inch!

It made me think of all the other things that seemed to disappear, somewhere about the same time, but have never been forgotten. Like some of the television programmes that used to occupy our little black and white, non LCD, non plasma, non remote control, non flat screened televisions. Things like Z Cars (though Everton FC have a habit of at least keeping the theme tune alive), the Black and White Minstrels (that just wouldn't see the light of day in out politically correct world), The Avengers, Robinson Crusoe (with that captivating sad theme music), Casey Jones, Dixon of Dock Green, Peyton Place 9though we were never allowed to watch it on Sunday night), Sportsnight with Coleman, Opportunity Knocks, Emergency Ward Ten, Ready Steady Go, Armchair Theatre, Steptoe and Son and Dickie Henderson.

And as the inch began to fade, so did the Beatles, TheSound ofMusic, Dallas, Muhammad Ali, Graham Hill, typewriters, stereograms, valve radios and a host of other things that we had become accustomed to having around. In their place came computers, transistors, Mike Tyson, Michael Schumacher, hi fi, Jurassic Park, Sesame Street, video recorders, colour television, microwaves, Pampers, the internet and the Rubik Cube. Even in sport we no longer have the one hundred yards sprint, the two twenty or the mile, the twenty five , the ten yard line and the five yard scrum have all gone in rugby but thankfully Steven Gerrard can still score great goals from thirty yards!

Sometimes I wish my boys could have known some of these things as they happened but I guess that is one of the great wonders of life, that every generation has its own heroes and yesterday's hero is today's history. But I suppose we all cling on to things from the past, whether it be a singer or band we grew up with, a footballer we idolised, a television programme we never missed, a holiday destination we visited as children, or even something as simple as the units we use to measure with. When Jesus asks us to follow Him, there is no turning back, no clinging to former things, no hankering after the past. One man's reply to Jesus' call was 'Lord, first let me go and bury my father." But Jesus replied, "Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God." It's so easy for things to get in our way when He calls, but you know we don't have to forget them, we just have to make Jesus first in our lives and then we'll realise what's truly important and, like the old chorus, 'the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace.' To miss heaven by inches is to miss it by miles. But it's not to late to convert.