1998 and All That

When writing the history of things, beginnings are nearly always murky, confused and badly documented. But eventually the historian can latch upon a key first date, an anchor that can be relied upon as a sign that things had irrevocably changed.

Today is the anniversary of such a date. On this day, the 14th of October, an historic and fateful encounter took place near Hastings in Sussex. The year was 1998.

No, for once I am not talking about the history of England, but personal history. For whilst my relationship with my then wife-to-be was already a few months old and had already had its fair share of Athelstans and Canutes, it was the day we accidentally spent at the site of the Battle of Hastings that I now look back on as a key moment.

I say accidentally because it was pure coincidence, or serendipity if you will, that took us there on that particular day. At a loose end with spare time together during what was then an uncertain and somewhat loose association with each other, we found ourselves driving around Sussex in an October fog looking for something to do. One of us, I forget who, mentioned Hastings as being nearby and it turned out that neither of us had visited the famous battle site. And then, as one, we both remembered the date of the battle and we turned to each other and said in unison, "but hang on that's today!"

To demonstrate the same knowledge simultaneously to each other was a thrilling moment of connection for a pair of nerdy show-offs such as us and after that we had a wonderful time. Being a drizzly Wednesday, we all but had the battlefield to ourselves which made it beautifully empty and evocative. After stomping around we eventually came to a large stone slab that had been laid to mark the spot where Harold II was supposedly killed. Totally spurious of course, but someone had left a bunch of yellow flowers there, the only bright colour amongst the mist and the October afternoon shadows.

As I get older, memories become increasingly blurry and I am appalled at how often people remind me of things that I have utterly forgotten. But I don't think I will ever forget those flowers, or that day together with the wonderful woman who is now my wife.

Nor will I ever forget that everything we have here - our lives in America, our marriage and, of course, our children - are all as a result of what happened at Battle on the 14th of October.