The UFO Bible 4

After two years of working at Mr. Weathercock's school Michael decided that he didn't really have it in him to be a teacher. He borrowed the books from the headmaster's office and had worked through all of them several times. He wasn't adding anything to the lessons himself and didn't feel that he was really capable of being a great teacher. How could he add anything to the lessons? He had only one A' level. Michael hadn't done very well at school himself so how could he ever be a competent teacher? He was a classroom supervisor. Michael thought it was time for a change. He returned to the Jobcentre and went into the outside toilet. By the light of the gas lamp on the wall, he read from the big, black book that contained all the jobs that were written in fountain pen. Here was one for an agricultural labourer. That was interesting. He typed the number into the metal keypad on the wall. He opened the door. Somehow the world around him didn't look very different. The factory chimney was still there. The back to back houses were still there. How many years had Michael travelled into the future? 

He came through the big oak and glass doors of the Jobcentre. The manager sat behind the desk wearing a top hat but this time it was a different manager to the one who had been there in 1881.
"I've come about the job as an agricultural labourer," said Michael.
"Best way to get to Low Grouch Farm is in a cab."
"What year is it? Do they have cars?"
"Not yet. Motorised taxis won't happen until the 1920s. It's 1916. Take a horse drawn cab. If you walk down to the city centre, near the railway station, you'll see them sitting on the street corners. Here's some money for the fare." The man gave him an envelope full of coins. "You want to go to Low Grouch Farm in Harringhay." Michael arrived in the horse drawn cab at the farm.
"Sixpence, please," said the driver. Michael had no idea what a sixpence looked like. He handed the taxi driver a big silver coin and said, "Keep the change." The taxi driver looked delighted.
"That's very generous of you, Sir."

Michael walked up to the farmhouse. A middle aged woman was standing outside.
"I've come about the job as an agricultural labourer."
"Harry," she called. A man came who looked about 50. "Another young man to work on the farm."
"Oh great," he said. "We're about to have our morning tea break. You might like to join us." The farmer shook Michael's hand.
"I'm Michael, by the way."
"Harry and Enid." Harry led them into the farmhouse kitchen. Enid boiled a huge black, whistling kettle on the log stove. She made tea in a big black teapot. Andrew came into the kitchen, a man who Michael had known at school.
"Hello Andrew," said Michael, surprised.
"Hello Michael." Enid poured them two cups of tea in two large earthenware mugs and added a dash of milk. Michael wondered if there would be any biscuits. He couldn't see any. He looked around the whole kitchen. Two large loaves of wholemeal bread. A butter dish with a white porcelain lid. A big block of cheese. A huge dish of apples decorated with brightly coloured flowers. No luxuries. Simple food for a simple time. Michael suddenly choked on his tea and spat a little bit out into the cup. Andrew laughed.
"Packet tea, Michael, don't expect that these people have ever heard of tea bags."
"Tea in bags?" asked Enid.
"In America," said Andrew. "It's in little bags so it filters the leaves out of the pot."
"What will they think of next?" asked Harry.

Andrew and Michael joined the family for work. They picked up the eggs from the barn and mucked out the chickens. The work was time consuming and tiring but the farmer and his family were easy to get on with and friendly. After a few weeks of getting up at five o' clock in the morning to milk the cows, Michael was starting to feel settled in his routine. He wanted to stay there for the rest of his life. But this could not be. One day, the farmer's son Simon said, "I've got the chance to fight for king and country. You might regret this."
"What a about you, Stanley?" the farmer asked his other son.
"I'm going to join the army so I can get three square meals a day. An army marches on its stomach. I think a soldier must be better fed."
"You get three square meals a day here," said his father.
"I think Stanley has got a point. I'm not complaining," said Michael, "but the porridge we get in the morning has got no milk in it, the soup we have at lunchtime is like gravy and the stew we have at dinner has got hardly any meat in it."
"I try to use an ounce of meat for each person," said Enid.
"That's like quarter rations. I'm always hungry."
"Well, Michael, well, Stanley, get yourself in the kitchen and get yourselves some bread and cheese," said Harry. "It's all there for you. And some of those great big apples."
"Your bread falls apart when you cut it," said Michael.
"Mixed grain bread like that needs to be an inch thick," said Enid. "I've never seen anybody cut it as thinly as you."
"Food enough to keep body and soul together," said Stanley. "And I'm going to join the army so I can get three square meals a day. What about you other chaps?"
"I haven't decided yet," said Andrew.
"Don't you want to save your country?" asked Simon.
"Well," said Michael, "I wouldn't mind saving my country if I didn't have a very good chance of coming back in a wooden box and a very slight chance of coming back in one piece."
"No need for that kind of language," said Harry. 

Michael left the room. Andrew followed after him.
"You're too honest," said Andrew. "Try not to give the impression you actually know the future."
"Andrew, have you ever read Ernest Hemingway?"
"Yes. We were both in the A' level English class. What about him?"
"Remember that poem when he sat on a log and talked to the farmer? Only two teams work on the farm this year. One of my mates in dead. The second day in France they killed him. That's where we are. The reason there's such a shortage of labourers on the farm is that they keep going off to fight in France and getting killed. If we stay here long enough we'll find ourselves under pressure to fight in the first world war."
"We're gonna get conscripted, mate," said Andrew. Simon followed after them.
"Look," he said, "Stanley and me are not children. We know war is dangerous. Several people from the farm have been killed. Even more have been wounded. But I'm going to fight in that war. Because if I don't, people like you will end up speaking German."
"What do you mean people like us?" asked Andrew.
"You're time travellers from the future. Michael keeps complaining about the food and wondering why the village chemist hasn't got any tablets to treat his allergy to plants. You're time travellers. It's nothing to be ashamed of."
"I'll go to another time," said Michael. "I could easily get a job in a colliery, a miner, or someone who washes the lead."
"You do that if you want to," said Andrew. "I'm taking a leaf from Simon's book. I want to fight for king and country. I'm going to join the army."
"Have you gone insane?" asked Michael. "You'll be riding along on your horse and a German tank will be firing shells at you. The rats in No Man's Land are fat because they feast on the soldiers' bodies."
"Go back to your own time," said Simon. "No one will blame you."
"I can't get a job in my own time. If I go back my benefits will be stopped."
"Go to another time," said Simon. "This is not your war. It's our war."
"It's everybody's war. How do you know our country didn't win the war because millions of unemployed people went back in time and fought in the two world wars?"

Michael sat in the outside toilet at the Jobcentre once again. He opened the big, black book and struggled to read the words written in fountain pen under the dim light of the gas lamp. There was a job for a collier. He punched the job number into the intercom on the wall. He opened the door and walked through the big wooden doors into the Jobcentre.
"I'm looking for a job as a collier," Michael said to the man behind the counter who was wearing a top hat.
"Best way to get there is to join the work party on a Monday morning at eight o' clock, outside the railway station. You've arrived late on Friday afternoon. Spend the weekend in my house and go down to the railway station on Monday morning." The man in the top hat led Michael into his house and put him in the spare room. On Monday morning Michael had set the small battery alarm clock beside his bed for six o' clock. He washed and dressed and walked down to the railway station, where a big group of people had assembled in front of the entrance.
"Are you going to the colliery?" he asked an older man who seemed to be in charge of a group of young children.
"Yes we are." Michael recognised that this was one of his old school friends.
"Oh Joe, it's you."
"Hello Michael."
"What time's the train?"
"What train?"
"The train to the colliery."
"Michael, it's 1871. Trains run in between cities. They don't have regional services to places like pit villages."
"How do we get there then?"
"Michael, we walk. The railway station is just somewhere that we meet. Some of these children are only five or six and they can't go there on their own."
"How long does it take?"
"Three hours."
"The children have to walk for three hours in their bare feet?"
"I think their feet are probably better adjusted to it than yours. It's not so bad. They stay in a dormitory at the colliery. They go there on a Monday morning and come back on a Saturday afternoon. Monday and Saturday are half days and Sunday is their day off. They work another four fourteen hour days, so all in all they work seventy hours a week."
"That's a long week."
"Michael, by the standards of this century, seventy hours a week is part-time. Some people work ninety hours a week."

Joe made sure all the boys were present and the procession eventually followed the long, slow route to the colliery.
"What brought you here?" Michael asked Joe.
"I couldn't stand being a computer programmer. I went back to 1960 and became a trainee. It was easy in the days when the machines had punched cards or paper tape. Just write a dozen lines of code and everybody thinks you're a genius. Then we came into the 1970s. Computer memory is measured in K. You can write hundreds of lines of code. They expected me to do really complicated things. I couldn't understand it anymore. What about you?"
"I spent a couple of years as a teaching assistant in a Victorian school. Got tired of working through the same old books over and over again. But I only got one A' level. I didn't do well at school myself. How could I add anything to the syllabus? I took a job as a farm labourer but it was 1916 and we were both under pressure to fight in the first world war."
"Both of you were? Who was with you?"
"Andrew Harvey."
"What did he do?"
"Andrew volunteered to join the army and fight in the first world war."
"Blimey."
"I don't suppose it's much stranger than wanting to wash white lead."
"Michael, we're mature men. Our job is to swing the pick axe, cut the lead ore and put it into the trucks on the railway line. The young children smash the ore with their hammers and the teenagers have a bit more dexterity so they wash the lead. But we're bigger and stronger, so we mine it. Did you bring any food?"
"The guy in the top hat at the Jobcentre gave me this ruck sack full of pasties, bread rolls, lumps of cheese and apples. I wondered why there was so much and how I would eat it all in one day. I thought I was meant to share it."
"That's a week's food. They all have one of those here. Eat the pasties on the first day. They go bad quickly but it's important to have them. Your body needs the iron and the protein. Eat the bread rolls over the first two days before they go mouldy. Then start on the cheese and apples. They keep longer."

Back in the 21st century Matthew met his new neighbour in the car park. The man was just getting out of his brand new BMW mini. Matthew was just getting out of his five year old Citroën.
"Hello. Are you my new neighbour?"
"Yes. The name's Tom."
"Pleased to meet you. Matthew." They shook hands.
"I've got a job in London," said Tom. "I commute from here."
"That's an awfully long way."
"Not really. The aliens have produced a new kind of alarm clock. You hit the snooze button and every minute lasts an hour. I set the time at nine minutes to four. I get up at four o' clock to drive my car to the railway station in Lincoln where I can park it all day but it feels like I'm getting up at lunchtime."
"Sounds great."
"Holidays are good as well. There's a time machine in the car. I can go for a long holiday and come back half an hour later. I've gone for a round the world cruise during my lunch break. So you see, I work under pressure and rarely take annual leave, I commute every day from here to London and it's no problem at all."

Many years later, Tom was sitting with his doctor.
"I have these terrible pains in my knees and I have frequent feelings of being really tired."
"Tom, you seem to have the constitution of an eighty year old and yet you're only sixty."
"Is it anything to do with time travel?"
"What kind of time travel?" Tom explained to the doctor all about the time dilation alarm clock and the time machine in the car. "You're not the only one of my patients with these problems," said the doctor. "You know what the aliens are trying to do? They're trying to solve the pension problem by causing everyone to die before they reach retirement age."

That evening the purple headed octopus appeared on television.
"Now that we have solved the unemployment problem and the pension problem," he said, "the government can afford to be more generous to single parents and disabled people."