Back To The Past Challenge

Live For a day… or longer… in an environment as close as you can to a time gone by.

First, choose a time period which you would like to explore.  Make it at least 50 years ago, but it can be much longer ago if you like.

Next do some research on this period.

If you know someone who was around during the chosen time, ask them about it, plus use books, the internet etc.
If not, you’ll have to rely on books, internet and knowledge others may have gleaned about the period.

Find out about all the things that you have today that weren’t around back then.

You may also need to decide where your “life” will take place (which country, city or countryside etc.)  and what “class” of person you are, as these things will affect what you would or wouldn’t have to some degree.

What food and drink?  Where did they get their food? 
Their water?

Electrical equipment…?  Did they even have electricity?      Computers and internet?  Games, hobbies and entertainment? 

What about books, magazines, papers?

What sort of clothes did they wear? 

Where did they sleep?  Eat?  Learn?  Work?  Write?

How did they look after their gardens?  What did they grow?

Would they have had pets?  Animals to raise for eggs, meat?

How did they do laundry?  Store food?  Cook?  Clean all sorts of household things?  Wash themselves?

What about transport?  Will you need to walk?  Ride a bike?  Were there cars, trains, buses?

Walk around your house, and yard, noting all the things that you have that you wouldn’t have if you’d lived back then.

What, if anything, would you have had instead?
How have the things of today made these tasks easier?  Do you think anything has become harder or more complicated?

Work out what you need to do to live your day (or however long you want to challenge yourself) without using as many of these things as possible.

Some may just be impractical… eg. you will probably want to continue using and flushing your toilet rather than digging a hole in your backyard or collecting it in a bucket!
Try to eliminate as many un-period things as possible from your life trial though… yes, even the TV and computer!

You may want to involve your whole family… this will make it easier when you have to only use candlelight or kero lamps etc.

BE EXTREMELY CAREFUL WITH THESE KINDS OF THINGS AND ONLY UNDER ADULT SUPERVISION!

You may have to cheat and substitute a small torch to represent a candle, for safety and practicality reasons.  And you may have to cook on your stove, rather than a fire or woodstove.  You could use an outdoor BBQ to represent outdoor fire cooking, if that’s what suits your period.

Be inventive with substitutions, but don’t make it too easy on you… or your parents J… this is meant to be a realistic experience!

Remember things like showers may not have been around… maybe not even baths!

And your favourite cereal or canned food might not have existed!
Possibly you couldn’t buy packet biscuits or cakes etc and may need to make your own… even bread (and don’t cheat with a bread machine!)

See if you can get together some clothes that would give the right feel to your world too.

When you have fully planned your experience… and tried to cover any eventualities… you are ready to live in your Brave New World (or should that be Old?)  Have fun and get at least a taste of what it was like for people living then.

One thing that is allowed… and should be used… is a camera and/or a video camera.  Take lots of pictures and video of your “life” to be used in a display/project about your experience.  If your family happens to have an old camera of some sort… or you can make your own simple pinhole cameras… this could be another project using old style photos to represent your day.  Also, you can manipulate digital photos on the computer afterwards, to make them look old, eg. using sepia tone, grainy, faded pictures etc.  So this could be another way of doing it.

If you enjoyed the experience, consider repeating it for a very different time.

Also, this could be a fun experience for a camping trip, as it may be easier to more realistically “live” the experience, as you can take only what you consider appropriate… and maybe you will even have the realistic toilet facilities! 

At the end, make a presentation to describe your experience… what happened, what you did, what you found hard, what was easy, what you wish was still how things were now etc. 

Remember to include photos, sketches etc.  You could even write a poem about your feelings during the experience.  Or a short story from a character’s point of view.  Or you could even keep an old time style diary (like Little House on the Prairie) of the whole experience.