Bill Sykes' - In Retrospect XXII.
(April 2010)

Bill Sykes looks back in retrospect at material which has been published in previous editions of "View from America", in an attempt to determine whether the subject matter written then is still applicable in today’s world.

Article #22A.

Introduction;
The monthly newsletter that I’ve been writing for the Huddersfield One website during the last eight years or so now appears to have dwindled down to a quarterly newsletter!
The trouble is that there doesn’t appear to be many, if any, good things happening in this world of ours these days and I’m sure that you the readers, (if there are any of you still left), are getting more than a little bored with reading over and over again the bad news items that are going on in this world. Such as the terrible coal mine disasters that have occurred in England and China, the worldwide earthquakes in Haiti, China, and many other places around the globe, which have caused dreadful devastation and the killing and maiming of thousands of people. Then we have the two ongoing unwinnable wars in Iraq and Afghanistan!  As if you really wanted to know - but as one renowned editor once said to me,
"Bill, bad news sells newspapers - good news does not". Was he right?

Current news.
Perhaps you think that you’ve seen practically all of the bad news that has happened in the world in past editions of "Looking Back In Retrospect", but let me tell you right now that you haven’t seen anything yet until you read the next few paragraphs.
For starters let me see what disasters are currently going on in the world. The latest news is centered around the violent volcanic eruptions that are taking place in Iceland which have created a huge cloud of black smoke, and the accompanying ash which can turn into sulfuric acid rain, that has shrouded Ireland, England, and most of Western Europe, and which has brought about the cancellation and standstill of most, or in some cases all of the air traffic which was going to come into, or go out of, the UK and the surrounding Western European airfields.
It must be noted that a similar eruption from the same volcano, which happened in 1821, continued to erupt for two years!
In addition we of course have the global warming phenomena and the melt down of the northern polar icecaps to contend with.

Potential danger from the heavens above?
I will now turn to a slightly different but very dangerous subject,where we will take a look at the dangers that can possibly come from outer space.
In April of this year, a meteorite shower in space lit up the night sky with an unbelievable amount of illumination, and there is also the case of an asteroid that recently plunged towards earth and broke into pieces over Wisconsin after entering the Earth’s atmosphere.
Russia apparently is seeking a way to deflect Asteroid Apophis which will pass close to the Earth within the next twenty years. Asteroid Apophis which was discovered in 2004 is apparently three times larger than the 1908 Tunguska Meteorite which landed and exploded in a terrific ball of fire in the Siberian waste land which devastated a very large area of forest and destroyed 80 million trees.

Thought for today;
What with all the catastrophic occurrences that are happening worldwide on virtually a daily basis and with special reference to the ever increasing number of violent earthquakes, may one surmise and perhaps give some degree of credence to the predictions made by Nostradamus and the Mayan Indians, who apparently predicted thousands of years ago, (before Nostradamus came upon the scene), that the world as we know it would spin out of orbit and disappear in a fiery ball into space, on the 21st of December, 2012.
The Metaphysical Sciences people apparently maintain that they have found that when there is a correlation between the direct alignments of the Sun, the Moon, the Earth, and some of the stars that surround the Earth on which we live , the direct alignment can cause a potential break away of the Earth from its current orbit and cause it to hurtle into space as a huge ball of fire.  
Apparently in their opinion they forecast that an upcoming alignment will have a direct correlation and effect with respect to the demise of the Planet Earth that we live on.
Perhaps these are just the predictions of certain scientific people, which appear to be similar in character to me of the people that I remember as a boy who stood upon street corners with placards announcing that, "the end of the world is nigh”.

We will now take a look at predictions from two sources.
1) Nostrodamus.
Nostradamus was a practicing physician, astronomer, and astrologer, who lived in the mid-16th Century, (1503/1566).
He is well known in today’s world for the messages that he wrote during his lifetime in the form of four line poems which were called Quatrains, He apparently completed 942 Quatrains during his lifetime which apparently predicted amongst other things, the French Revolution, the birth and rise to power of Adolph Hitler, the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the Great Fire of London, and the exile of Napoleon to Elba.
With regard to current events he is also said to have predicted, the destruction of the space shuttle Challenger, the death of Lady Diana, and the destruction of the Twin Towers on the eleventh of September 2001.
One cannot be blamed for being more than a little critical of whether these predictions, which apparently emanated from Nostradamus Quatrains, have apparently come true, will come true, or are just false interpretations of the material that is located in some of the Quatrains.

2) The Mayan Indians.
Now we come to the Mayan civilization, which apparently became fully developed during the period of the third millennium before Christ and who lived in a territory which encompassed 320,000 square kilometers of territory, including regions of Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Belize and parts of
El Salvador, where the Mayan civilization held power over the land for as long as 2,000 years.
Guatemala, which is located in Central America, is unquestionably the heart of the Mayan world, and some of their major cities flourished there as centers of commerce and culture.
Tikal, a major Mayan city, attracts thousands of visitors every year - in fact a number of years ago, when Sheena and I were in Guatemala, we flew in an ancient DC3 aircraft to Tikal for a short visit where we attended a lecture which described how advanced the Mayan civilization was in the fields of spectacular art and sophisticated mathematical and astronomical knowledge.
It has been acknowledged that through the centuries, the Mayan people, because of their knowledge of science and astrology, formed the greatest cultural civilization on the American continent.
The Mayan Indians apparently also believed that the world, as we know it, would be destroyed in a similar time frame as the one stated by Nostradamus - the question now arises as to who came up with the date of the worlds demise in the first place, was it the Mayan Indians or Nostradamus?
Seeing that the Mayan Indians lived in a time frame long before Nostradamus appeared upon the scene, my bet must be placed upon the Mayan Indian’s version.
What a gloom and doom scenario - let us hope that whatever has been prophesized, by whom so ever, does not come to fruition in our lifetime, the lifetime of our families, our children, their children, and their children’s children, and if it ever does happen to occur, then please let it be at least one hundred or two hundred years or more hence.

Looking back into the past and reminiscing about times long ago.
I’m now of course in a bit of a fix as to what subject I should write about that would interest you the reader, or perhaps some of the readers, as I’m sure that you’ve certainly had enough of the American and British political scenes, and enough of the bad news reporting to last a life time, and so I decided that I would write an article, about  the 129th final of the 2010 FA Cup, (which will be played by top of the Premiership League Chelsea and bottom of the Premiership League Portsmouth), and the event will take place on the 15th of May 2010, and I’m pretty sure that there must be some football (soccer) supporters amongst you.
I then changed my mind and decided that I would perhaps entertain you with a look back at some of the things that happened to me during my youth, (and at the same time amuse myself into the bargain), so I commenced to write an article about the one thing that I loved so much when I was a young boy, "British football (soccer)", and in particular the three local football teams that I used to support some seventy years ago, and also for good measure to include a description of the participation of my favorite team Huddersfield Town AFC, (for the uninitiated "Association Football Club"), in the British FA cup final of 1938,

As a youth, I of course supported my home town football club Huddersfield Town AFC, which was followed later by Bristol City, and Bristol Rovers, (the two teams that I supported after we moved to the Bristol area many years later). By the way I was thirteen years of age at the time of the 1938 FA Cup Final, and after 71 years I still remember the names of the Huddersfield Town players who participated in that FA Cup Final, when Huddersfield Town played Preston North End and got beaten in the last minutes of extra time by a disputed penalty goal which was taken by a player named George Mutch of Preston North End. This was the first televised football match in England but unfortunately like many other people we didn’t have a television set and I had to listen to the match on radio.
 
If my memory serves me correctly, and I’m sure it does, the members of the Huddersfield Town football team, who participated in the FA Cup final of 1938 was as follows:

Hesford,
Hayes, Mountford
Willingham, Young, Boot,
Hulme,  Issac, McFaddeyen. Barclay, Beasley.
(Alf Young was captain of both Huddersfield Town and England at that time).

As a young boy of twelve/thirteen years of age I not only supported Huddersfield Town AFC, I also participated in all types of school sports - you name it I took part, and I remember very well standing every other Saturday in the Boy’s enclosure behind the goal at the Leeds Road end of the pitch (eventually to become the "Cowshed" end) at the Huddersfield Town football ground. I cannot for the life in me see that any of my reminiscing would be of interest to you the reader, unless of course you are an avid football supporter, but it passed a couple of happy hours for me sitting at my computer and looking back at the past and conjuring up pictures in my mind of happy times that happened so long ago.

As the initial part of the newsletter is so important when it comes to considering the possible future, or lack of a future, of the human race, I certainly would like some feed back, good, bad, or indifferent, upon the subjects that I have written about.

Disclaimer:
Some of the information gathered for this news letter has been gleaned from American and international media sources, (including the internet), and as such is quoted as accurately as possible.
I try to obtain confirmation on each subject from several outlets, so the text is a mixture of composite items and personal comments and therefore the reader must make his/her own judgment as to the reliability and degree of accuracy of the subjects discussed.

Eric (Bill) Sykes, (Southern California).
April 2010.

We welcome feedback about any of the contents of these newsletters. Please send all correspondence to bill_sykes@huddersfield1.co.uk