AS A kid growing up during the Second World War in Britain, I hated the cold that used to seep in through the north-facing bay window at my home in Sunderland. So I fixed an extra piece of glass about a centimetre from the outer pane. After the other windows had been given extra panes, it was equally warm anywhere in the room. My parents were delighted. Now manufacturers are selling everyone double glazing.
Fast forward 30-plus years and a pile of experience in aerospace and invention later, I found myself invited to the US. This was shortly after the DC10 crash in Chicago in 1979. While I was there I discovered that the aircraft industry had a global problem with the mechanics of how to tighten nuts and bolts on planes. Every company seemed to have a different way of doing it.
I sat down and wrote a paper that laid it out in numerical and picture form鈥攃omprehensible to both sides of the brain. The paper (entitled 鈥淧retension Diagrams for Bolted Joints鈥� if you really want the nitty-gritty) became the new standard method recommended by NASA. Very few aeroplanes fall apart in the sky now.
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Not content with that, I decided to aim really high with my latest innovation. I found it difficult to find a low-cost pocket diary. At one time, we used to have every sort for every profession. So I tried to print my own. But in the process, it struck me that every page has to be different every year.
So I decided to change the calendar instead. People said: 鈥淲hat a good idea, but you can鈥檛 change the calendar, it would be impossible.鈥� My response was simple: just stop giving New Year鈥檚 Eve a day name, like Monday or Sunday. It already has its own special name, and without it you鈥檇 have exactly 52 weeks every year, and the same date would always fall on the same day. Voil脿鈥攁 perpetual calendar.
I wrapped it all up in a book, The New World Calendar, which I published before the millennium. The only people who thought it insignificant was the committee of the Millennium Dome. It spent millions on the Dome (now to be virtually given away) but rejected my new calendar as a suitable exhibit for the Millennium celebrations on cost grounds. I chuckled, thinking: 鈥淚鈥檒l bet my cheap and simple calendar will be around a lot longer than their monument.鈥�
I checked with the Vatican, which has been tied to the Roman calendar since Julius Caesar, and it gave me its blessing, which I thought was the highest accolade of all.
I did pause when I discovered that it was a man from my home town who got the calendar changed to our present version. St Bede of Sunderland wrote to Rome in 730 (exactly 1200 years before I was born). Pope Gregory imposed it on all Catholic countries 850 years later. Is someone trying to tell me something?