If I Could Turn Back Time

Time travel is impossible, but wishful thinking on the part of many writers means that it is a fairly common theme in fiction. And while it was once the preserve of the science-fiction writer, it's fair to say that it is becoming slightly more mainstream and is a device used both in books and in television as a medium to revisit past times and re-invent history. H G Wells pretty much invented the genre with The Time Machine,  although Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court pre-dates it by six years, and other classics include To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis and  Slaughterhouse - Five by Kurt Vonnegut. I have recently read Ben Elton's time travel novel, Time and Time Again and am currently reading Steven King's 11.22.63, which I want to finish before starting to watch the TV adaptation.

Rod Taylor in the film of The Time Machine

  

Ben Elton is an interesting character; he first came to prominence as a right-on, Left-wing, stand up comedian, ranting about the uselessness of motorway service tea pots and Margaret Thatcher. Then he became a national treasure when he collaborated with Richard Curtis to write Blackadder. As a novelist, his books are difficult to pigeon-hole; he doesn't fit into any convenient, single genre. His works include murder mystery, talent show satire and life in Nazi Germany. The premise of Time and Time Again is that if you could travel back in time and change one event, would you, could you and if so, which one event? Elton's protagonist, ex-SAS type Hugh Stanton, is sent back to 1914 to thwart the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and thereby prevent the outbreak of war. The law of unintended consequences kicks in, and without wishing to spoil the book for anyone who is thinking of reading it, history changes in many unexpected ways and with multiple strands of time intertwining. King's novel has a similar premise. High school English teacher Jake Epping travels back to 1963 (via 1958 - it's a long novel) in an attempt to stop Lee Harvey Oswald from assassinating President John F Kennedy, righting some other wrongs on the way.

Despite the fact that time travel is not possible, most writers are mindful of the butterfly effect and the danger of temporal paradoxes, although stories such as the one in the film Somewhere in Time exploit these so-called bootstrap paradoxes (named for the Robert Heinlein time-travel story, By His Bootstraps) - in fact the whole story in the film is predicated on one such paradox.

If time travel were possible it is safe to assume that there would be a comprehensive set of restrictions imposed on anyone wanting to travel back in time; less so (if any) on anyone wishing to travel forward, presumably. So, if you could go back, when would you go back to and what, if anything would you change? Let's set aside the idea of travelling to the 1930's and killing Adolf Hitler, or preventing the assassination of Kennedy, or Martin Luther King, or just going back and putting a bundle of money on Red Rum winning three consecutive Grand Nationals, what would you do, what could you do, that would actually be useful? (and even then, should you do it?)

Red Rum on his way to Grand National glory.

Perhaps the most likely thing you would do is correct your own mistakes, or more usefully, prevent yourself making them in the first place. It's apparently quite common for people to write a letter to their younger self; it is supposed to be cathartic. But apart from absolving yourself of guilt over any past actions, misdeeds or mistakes, these letters change nothing; imagine what the impact would be if your letter could actually be delivered to your younger self. What would you say?

Perhaps you would try to prevent your young counterpart having to face a traumatic or life changing experience. For instance, my first wife, June, died of a brain haemorrhage which the doctors told me after the event could have happened at any time and which it might not have been possible to have prevented with surgery before it occurred had anyone known it was going to happen. It's probable that even with prior knowledge of her condition, her life might not have been saved; would I change the past by preventing my younger self from marrying her, or even dating her? Yes, it would have saved me so much grief, but I would have missed out on much joy and happiness too. And who knows what (different) distress and heartache I might have experienced had my life taken a different course?

If I could deliver that letter, I would not tell myself to change anything specific, what I would do is attempt to change my mind set. I would say, "Don't say No, don't accept No, but don't worry about being told No." For a lot of my life I said No to things because I worried about the consequences; I probably missed out on a lot of things by saying No when I should have said Yes. They say you should not regret the things you have done, only the things you haven't and looking back I wish I'd been braver and not said No at times. A lot of times I was told No when I asked to do something (particularly when I asked my parents if I could do something); I wish I'd been braver and not taken No for an answer (well, not without a damn good reason anyway). And I wish I hadn't been scared to be told No at times.  I suppose I cannot be the only person who has been so daunted by the prospect of a refusal and therefore not asked the question, whatever it may be, rather than be told No. The rationale is that if you don't ask, you can't know if you would be rebuffed and you'll be happier that way. But if you do ask, your request may not even be denied, so what do you have to lose? For a very little word, "No" has a huge impact on our lives; a lesson for us all - regardless of the fact that we cannot educate our younger selves about it - is that we should pay less heed to the word. Mind you, I am a fine one to talk. I have often been told that I am a quite negative person (although I have tried to shake that off over the years) and "No" has played a significant role in my life, more so that it should have; if I could go back and berate myself about anything it would be about not being so negative.

On the whole, it is fortunate we cannot change the past, better that we learn from it to influence our future.