Back To The Future

Twelve-year-old Alfie loved Saturdays. His grandparents, Nana and Pops, came to look after him while his parents were at work.

Alfie has cerebral palsy and is partially sighted with minimal fine motor movement in both hands. He uses a lightweight wheelchair most of the time.

He is very independent, however, as his bungalow home has been designed so he can move through it freely. He can shower himself thanks to a fully adapted wet room. Getting dry is easy, too, as he simply positions himself in front of a nearby drying tunnel and the sensors on the coloured arm pad activate the flow of thermostatically controlled air.

All doors are automatically opened and closed by sensors connected to the headband set he wore throughout the day.

Today, Nana said, they would be going to the town centre, known as The Village, a huge area dominated by a magnificent circular building known as The Round.

Alfie thought this was a magical place, filled with opportunities for people of any age to enjoy all available services and activities at the touch of buttons on their mobile phones. Interactive sports centres, libraries, art galleries and glass domed exhibition areas abounded. Virtual shops, cafes and restaurants catered for all tastes with a range of international cuisine condensed into various shaped coloured tablets.

There was no time-consuming washing up or unnecessary burning of fuel here. Nana said she sometimes longed for the old days back in 2022 when she used to enjoy cooking and baking delicious cakes. None of this bothered her or Pops, though, as he still had his allotment where he grew fresh vegetables which Nan made into tasty soups and stews on her solar-powered cooker.

The Round was accessible to everybody, even those living on the edge of the sprawling Village Centre. It was designed as a modern version of Stratford’s Globe. All community groups have a base there with performances ranging from Panto to Shakespearean comedy and everything in between.

Return transport to The Round was provided by a network of brightly coloured pods which ran on rails 24 hours a day, seven days a week, thanks to the investment in, and convenience of, solar energy combined with state funded, well-insulated buildings.

Alfie always made a bee-line for the arts section in The Round. He loved to paint, using a series of probes connected to his headband to operate a virtual paintbox. With a single nod of his head, he could load up his ‘brush’ and fill the entire screen with his abstract patterns. There were several consoles in the art arena that other people used to paint more structured work.

What delighted him was that all their efforts could be seen by the people walking about outside The Round, thanks to an active media facade known as The Chat Back Zone.

Outdoor shoppers were able to comment on the exhibits and often added a squiggle or two of their own in lieu of a signature.

Nana, of course, still preferred what she described as “real shopping” as they did in the old days when the shops were staffed with humans and real money changed hands.

No problem with that, though, as outside The Round, as a result of a national consultation, the Government introduced the Independent Retailers Act 2030, encouraging, through generous tax concessions, the re-introduction of single shopping units within which small businesses could be introduced and thrive again.

Nana was in her element.

On either side of The Village’s pedestrianised area, Derby Road, there were separate shops for the butcher, baker and greengrocer alongside the shoe and clothing shops and pharmacy, hairdressers, barbers, sweetshops, newsagents and tobacconists. These businesses were all staffed by an owner and an assistant, often family members.

Each shop had a distinctive smell of its own taking Nana back to her youth. No plastic cards here; all trading was done in cash, something which seemed to Alfie to be an overcomplicated system, not to mention time-consuming, but then Nana, at almost seventy, was, he thought, very old.

Still dominating this retail renaissance from its lofty position of Huyton-On-The-Hill was Huyton Parish Church, dating back to the Norman period, lovingly preserved and embracing technology. The Parish Church Council offered a Living History Experience tracing the history of Huyton in general and the church in particular.

While Nana did her shopping, Granddad took a pod ride to his allotment area. He was able to access advice on his crops to ensure maximum yield thanks to the voice-activated technology installed on the perimeter of the vast allotment site.

In the centre of the allotment, there was a huge ‘Man-Shed’ fitted out to resemble Pop’s other favourite hideaway, which used to be known as The Pub. After keying in their personal identification code, eligible adult customers could concoct their particular drink in a specialist section of the building, and their account would be charged automatically. Being a regular visitor to this facility, Granddad had become something of a connoisseur in what he called Real Ales and Fine Wines!

All buildings and facilities within The Village’s boundaries were interlinked through a series of open parkland. This was a huge cultivated green space with trees, spectacular lakes, waterfalls, and a fountain, providing contrast to the brick-built functional environment.

Lightweight, adaptable seating placed strategically throughout this open campus ensured maximum opportunities for rest and relaxation. Of course, things went wrong occasionally. Bad weather, with little sunshine, especially in winter, affected the running of major installations, public or otherwise. The expansion of wind turbines in the outlying fields of The Village was a sore point; nothing is perfect.

Pops still collected wood and paper and stored them in his shed at home, ready to build a real fire if necessary. He’d even dug an underground ice pit where Nana kept fresh food ‘just in case!

Alfie just smiled. He loved all the technology, having been born into it. He was glad, though, that as far as he knew, there was not as yet any machine which hugged him or made him feel better when he was ill. Nana and Pops told him once that human beings did this best, and that was good enough for him!