Had Mrs. Wallis Simpson proved less attractive to Edward, or had their paths never crossed - think life in another dimension - history could have taken many, many different turns. Diana might still be around - perhaps not as Princess Di, but out there happily raising a gaggle of kids in more than comfortable circumstances, somewhere in the Home Counties. Princess Margaret, not as sister to the heir to the throne, might have led a very different, happier and more serene lifestyle. Perhaps even King George VI, without the stress of being monarch of all he surveyed during a terrible World War, would not have died so young.
Domino effect, causal nexus......chain reaction. It's a funny ol' life!
Cue the song:
Your topic today and your sidebar quoting Neil Gaiman combined in my brain...voila, "A Sound of Thunder" by Ray Bradbury: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Sound_of_Thunder
ReplyDeleteThe blue norther arrived hours ago...brrrr...cold for us here in the deep south of Texas. It must be truly cold up in your woods!
mike ~~ Yes! The time traveller with the butterfly stuck in mud under his boot! Love the story and the film.
ReplyDeleteBlue norther here also, coming from the Arctic with a vengeance overnight and a light fall of snow - hardly enough to cover ground, then it froze quite hard. Ah well - it IS December - though you wouldn't have known it a few days ago when I wrote Christmas cards bound for England, I said on most "It doesn't feel a bit like Christmas - it's 78* outside".
Made a liar of myself!
And we mightn't have "met", Twilight. That would have been a tragedy.
ReplyDeleteJames Higham ~~~ How very kind, she said, dimpling. :-)
ReplyDeleteErm - how might that eventuality have arisen though? A King Edward might have cosied up to the Nazis for longer, dilly-dallied so that Churchill might not have been able do his thing, and we all might be either speaking German now...or have been blown to smithereens?
I see!
Sidetrack - I have often speculated that Wallis might have been a man.
ReplyDeleteRemember that movie M. Butterfly?
Yes the world went looking for a war and would have found one anyway without or without ol' Ed.
XO
WWW
*with or without. cheesh.
ReplyDelete“Had Mrs. Wallis Simpson proved less attractive to Edward, or had their paths never crossed - think life in another dimension - history could have taken many, many different turns.”
ReplyDeleteOh yes, we would have had Herr Chancellor Adolf Hitler in charge and The Second World War would have been if not won, for sure not lost by The Axis...
In fact, Wally Simspon was a Nazi spy and Edward VIII was a Nazi sympathizer, England would have not entered in war, Churchill would have remained a historian with a political appendix...
There is a photo in which Edward VIII, visiting Germany under the rule of “Mistah Hitlah”, Herr Adolf Hitler, had a clear arm up in the well-known “Heil” gesture...
Then the photo was corrected... Churchill knew very well Edward’s sympathy for the Nazis...
How can history change when arrives at a sort of cross-road points...
We should reflect and ponder very attentively about these points, key-points, crucial choices on and in the roads...
Wisewebwoman ~ Some photographs of her could encourage such thoughts, something about the jawline, I guess.
ReplyDeleteI haven't seen M. Butterfly - looked it up - sounds interesting! :-)
I don't think "The world" was looking for war - the poor sods who had to fight weren't looking for it, nor the hapless citizens in occupied and bombed Europe and blitzed Britain - but a cabal of madmen obviously were. It didn't do the bank accounts of some industrialists who manufactured weapons, bombs, planes etc, a lot of harm either!
Revisionists (not much better than conspiracy theorists)have found a way to make piles of money decades later - selling their books.
Chomp ~~ Yes, that's the way I surmise things would have unfolded, - the way Hitler envisaged his illustrious future. He wouldn't have needed to invade Britain with Edward on the throne - but how long that scenario would have lasted we can't know. Edward might have sympathised, but the People of Britain did not.
ReplyDeleteAs you say, those cross-points in history are critically important, and some seem almost "staged" from our perspective - but then, we have benefit of hindsight.
Dimpling? Still this beating heart.
ReplyDeleteJames Higham ~~ :-D
ReplyDeleteCan I stop sucking my cheeks in now?