If you could travel back to any time period…

[AmazingBouncingFerret]

Any era or civilisation, any social class, what would it be?

I’m torn between being aristocratic in Regency England because everything was obviously just like a Jane Austen novel or maybe the roaring twenties, even though I’m not the biggest fan of jazz I wouldn’t have minded the rising hemlines and risqué nightclubs.

I asked my husband and he genuinely started muttering something about Romans, which is hilarious considering he’s an almost 50 year old with no social media so he wouldn’t have seen or heard of the Roman Empire thing.

I’d love to go back to observe the ancient Egyptians and the Tudors.

also, I’d really like to go back in time to see what my parents and grandparents were like at various stages of their life !

I think any time pre internet for me.
The internet is great, but we didn't mod it when we didn't have it. Stuff got done. People kept in contact.

Any of the dinosaur periods. I'm a big wildlife fan :)

Obviously with a really strong cage, motion sensors and stuff for safety.

I’d like to watch the York mystery plays in their heyday.
On a similar note it would be so interesting to see an early performance of a Shakespeare play, maybe the premiere of Hamlet.

Wow that’s an amazing thought re parents and grandparents.

We know he died c1923, but can find neither a birth nor death certificate for him. I do have a possible death (going to the London Metropolitan Archives next week to see if I can rule it in or out), but the details on his marriage certificate and the 1921 census don’t quite tally with any birth or death records. There was a family rumour that he changed his name, but we have such limited information! He also has a really common name, so it makes things extra tricky… To be able to see all the people I’ve been finding out about through my investigations would be incredible.

@RobinEllacotStrike

You are spot on with your post about the of fantasty of what people mindsets of time travel than the reality of it mostly 🤔

It's similar thing happens with when people have past life regression therapy sometimes ect.

Yes we are all super fancy or important in our previous lives & past life regressions.

No harm done though - it's all simply an imaginative thought exercise.

I think I'm just too pragmatic to be able to relax into it. If time travel ever does become a thing (😂) don't say I didn't warn ya.

I love the fact that it's the era but not the time travel that is unbelievable 😁.

London during World War II. Sounds crazy but I think as a nation we were probably at our best then

Would love to go back to the late 19th century to see great and great-great grandparents, living amongst the familiar rural landscape where I grew up.

Like in Back to the Future but a couple more generations!

My brain .....

Imagine if someone from the future travelled back to today. They would have no money and no debit card. So no public transport.

How would they get anywhere? How would they eat? Where would they sleep? What about clean underwear & clothing?

They would immediately slip into a homeless lifestyle and be very vulnerable. If they mentioned the time travel they would be shunned by 99%.

Or they would have to commit a crime to steal someone else's contactless card. And as soon as this is cancelled they need to commit more crime to get another card.

This would happen whatever period you time travel too. As a woman with large bust getting clothes that fit is difficult& time consuming. So wherever I end up in my time travels my first days are super risky involving crime & ill fitting clothing. It's not fun for me.

How do you pack for time travel?

Late sixties London - I’d love to go to a small venue to watch artists like Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix on their way up.

1970s New York - I want to spend a night at Studio 54.

Then onto Anglo Saxon York - I live here now, and would just love to see what it was like then.

After that, Pompeii. I wouldn’t pick any time around the eruption - I want to see it in its heyday.

Then I’d go back to 2000 and spend the day cuddling my babies and reading stories to them, just one more time.

The 90s. It was such a jolly time.

But going back into proper history would clearly be rubbish because sexism and dentistry

It was great as a child but not sure as an adult!

How do you pack for time travel?

Magic, obviously 😅You have an invisibility cloak and a Babel fish in your ear, so you can understand all languages, then you go on your way and explore.

Rampant sexism, homophobia, racism. Strikes, the National Front, shortages, three day week, Yorkshire Ripper (those women were asking for it - nice girls stay indoors). Nope. I grew up in the 70s and would not go back.

I'd like to visit my GGGgrandparents at their farm in the Scottish Highlands and also find out if my GGgrandma had a fling with one of the farm hands! I wouldn't be able to converse with them as they all spoke Gaelic.

I'd like to go back and observe rather than be a woman in Times of Yore!
I'd like to visit Restoration London, with the explosion of plays, music and generally having fun after the Cromwellian Interregnum.

I'd like to go back to Roman, medieval and regency times.

I’d also liked to go back to 1900s onwards to see how my great grandmother lived. She was a fascinating woman because though she was a mother and wife, she helped her community out a lot who were poor, her DH, my great grandfather was a tally man but the first in his street to have a car and cats whisker radio. She sadly died late 30s but loads of people followed her funeral procession when she died. I don’t think we have a photo of her. She was also illegitimate and didn’t know her father.

I'd relive the 80s again. Great job, great friends, fantastic holidays, huge bonuses, the hair, the clothes, the music, the films and just a great time to be alive.

There have been a few cases of people with amnesia turning up and they have been looked after by social services.

Going back to certain periods would be a lot more dodgy, I agree. In one of the best time travel series, the Sterkarm books, a homeless man from the present day travels back by accident and decides to stay in the 16th century since he hadn’t exactly got a lot to lose in his modern life.

I'm pretty sure my DH would choose Athens ... not quite sure of the exact years but during the eras of Socrates etc. He'd only be able to go for as long as he had prescription meds for though, he'd probably have been dead by now if he'd been born even a generation earlier.
Probably wouldn't work for me as a woman though. I'm not sure that any historical era would, except to make me glad I wasn't born any earlier. I mean I'd have liked to meet Hypatia but not knowing her fate.

@Shetlands

Do you have evidence that she did?!

How do you pack for time travel?

Logistics as in dr who, obviously. All necessary clothing, translation, documentation etc provided.