A man and his wife are likely to adopt a similar gait. So are an owner and his or her dog. So are father and son. It is not necessarily a topic of conversation. The two parties may be hardly aware of what others may see in them. The effect, I suppose, is rather like the general experience of having more influence on others than we realise. The good and bad effects are obvious.
Parents have enormous influence – particularly when they are unaware of it. This unawareness may be the key to its influence. Habits that are never questioned are far from losing their potency. A child does not merely copy the good things it sees Mum and Dad doing. It copies everything. Reasoned distinctions come later. Sometimes they don’t come at all.
A child who grew up in the 1930s will have grown up to observe Ascension Day (if we are talking of a church school) and also Empire Day. The maypole along with Guy Fawkes may be other milestones on the way. St George’s day and its dragon never quite made it into childhood imaginations but the English language certainly did. So did the decimal system. With ten fingers it was impossible to ignore it (though horologists did the impossible and gave us a 24-hour day).
Children imbibe such things and make their way through a mine-field of inherited habits. When the time comes for them to think for themselves, many of those traditional formulations come under review. Some are rejected; some are replaced. Steam locomotives enjoy a continuing place in people’s affections, as do windjammers. Shorthand has disappeared along with the typewriter. The term ‘steam-roller’ has such a secure place in our vocabulary, that like dialing a phone number or setting sail we continue to use language about the way things used to be. Much of our language is of this kind, obsolete. It may even prove to be impenetrable like ‘bull’s eye or Sassenach.
A child endeavouring to make sense of all this can hardly be faulted for querying what has proved to be important to adults – even if like so much that adults are concerned with, belief in a Maker and Redeemer may seem to be beyond reprieve.
‘SET IN STONE’
‘Set in Stone’ is a film introducing the 1300-year history of Hexham Abbey, one of the wonders of the north. It’s on the church website.
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