For The Love Of Port

Tom,

Only in a light-hearted way.
If it is a serious proposal, to ensure a controlled legacy, I wish you all well, and its certainly been an interesting read.
I would suspect this well trodden path is littered with good intentions, but history is against you.
We live in such an immediate and transient world. A way of highlighting that fact is to ask the question of anyone you know, 'Could you tell me anything of your family five generations back? And if they remarkably do know a vaguary, like 'we've always been in the military',Ask what that person was actually like 'as a person'.
So as a short term goal, as in, being remembered for a few years by close friends, no problems, and good luck. Anything further...???

We're all allowed opinions, and I've probably gone on far too long, but my over-riding thoughts and advice would be to enjoy your collection and life in general, but leave the future to those in it! :)

Alan

Alan C wrote:We live in such an immediate and transient world. A way of highlighting that fact is to ask the question of anyone you know, 'Could you tell me anything of your family five generations back? And if they remarkably do know a vaguary, like 'we've always been in the military',Ask what that person was actually like 'as a person'.
So as a short term goal, as in, being remembered for a few years by close friends, no problems, and good luck. Anything further...???

Alan, The advent of electronics and technology should further enhance what our grandkids' grandkids will know about us - if of course we do anything worthy enough of memory and recollection! I rather suspect that Tom has the wherewithal to leave some sort of legacy behind, whether it be DVDs of directives, etc, or commissioning a statue or bust of himself to be left behind in the Tom Archer Memorial Cellar :) (If not, if I am allowed to join said membership, one of the first orders of business I will recommend to "the board" is such a tribute to the man who's selflessness allowed such a fine wine cellar collection to be born.)

Isn't it kind of spooky talking about events that may or may not happen after your own death? It kind of freaks me out (and it's not even me... it's Tom that is discussing the legacy he will leave behind!)

Todd

Alan,

'Could you tell me anything of your family five generations back?

You raise a fair point here and, realistically, there probably is only a finite time in which the person who establishes a trust (like a port memorial library) will be remembered for the person he is.

However, it is quite possible that the trust will continue long after the memories of who and why it was established are gone. Around where I live there is "Palmer Park", which was given as a gift to the town as an open space in perpetuity. Wokingham Town Council administers the "William Heelas Memorial Fund" which gives modest grants to projects intended to help local children. The details of exactly who Palmer (I believe it was the Palmer from the Huntley & Palmer biscuit company) and William Heelas (a very successful local shopkeeper) were, I do not know. Both these trusts were established in late Victorian times

However, if I wanted to make an effort then I could find out who these people were. Our local library has an excellent collection of local reference materials (many donated in a single bequest) which probably include photographs and possibly even cine film.

300 years ago, if you wanted to be remembered then you had to commission a portrait to be painted. Today, it is so much easier. My children were watching fascinated at breakfast time the contents of a video that I was transferring to DVD. The video itself was made up from cine film that had been transferred to VHS about 20 years ago. My children were watching various things, including the wedding of my parents 47 years ago where relatives that they vaguely knew about were walking around and shaking hands with each other.

And speaking of memorial busts, we took the children to the Royal Academy last month to show them various things including the bust of their Great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather that was on display there. The reaction of Michael, before he knew he was related, was "Doesn't that one look like Grandad in Cornwall?".

I guess I am both agreeing and disagreeing with you. I think that you are spot on when you say that the world is transient and become more impatient. However, I think that the nature of the people who would be interested in becoming members of something like a Port Memorial Library would be very different from the "Me, now" folks. Port drinkers see short term as 20 years, medium term as 50 years and long term as last century.

Alex

PS - I re-read this posting before I put it up and apologise. I should take my own advice and not take things too seriously :?