Frozen in Time by Ali Sparkes

larger and larger on the other, and Uncle Jerome stopped it just as one side shrank to the size of a saucer. Then he looked up at the screen above and reached over to it to turn a button. A discreet click was followed by a pinprick of light in the centre of the green screen.
    They waited in silence. After a few seconds Rachel said, ‘Is that it?’
    Polly gave her a pitying look. ‘It’s got to warm up, silly!’ she said.
    ‘TVs in the 1950s took several minutes to warm up,’ explained Uncle Jerome, not taking his eyes from the little screen. ‘The cathode ray tube would heat slowly and gradually radiate across the screen. You had to be patient. Something you children of today are not used to at all.’
    At last something was happening on the screen. The dot had become a column and the column was widening out into a speckly white and grey rectangle. A couple of minutes later the whole screen was lit. Uncle Jerome took a breath and then pressed a button on the Ampex. There was a heavy clunk and a gentle hum and the tape spools began to move again, in the reverse direction. Up on the screen a grainy image began to gather.
    ‘Yes!’ said Freddy. ‘It still works! That’s the gate!’
    Ben squinted at the screen, not sure what he was seeing at first but gradually beginning to recognize the view. It was the road outside Darkwood House. Darkwood Lane with the hedgerows on either side, June blossom, bright in black and white, blowing in a gentle breeze. Exactly the same view that you would get if you climbed the chestnut tree by the gate— except that the road was rough shingle, rutted and unmade up, whereas today it was smooth grey tarmac. Everyone stared, rapt, at the view. It was the least dramatic thing they were ever likely to watch on TV and yet quite thrilling.
    ‘Could this be the same day?’ asked Rachel. ‘The same day you went to sleep?’
    ‘It looks like yesterday,’ agreed Polly. ‘It was bright and sunny and a bit breezy and there was blossom out in the lane.’
    ‘Did your father run this camera continuously?’ asked Uncle Jerome.
    ‘I think so,’ said Freddy. ‘Well, during the day at any rate. It was all a bit new. I don’t know if he’d totally got the hang of it. He would come in to change the reels every couple of hours, so I don’t suppose he could have run it all through the night. It was more of an experiment than anything else.’
    ‘Look! Look!’ cried Polly. ‘The meat man! This must be about half past eleven—he always used to come before lunch.’
    On the small screen an old-fashioned van rolled into view and a young man wearing a peaked cap and an apron got out. He disappeared around the back of the small vehicle and then reappeared, carrying a large covered basket.
    ‘He used to bring our chops and lamb and pigs’ hearts every week,’ said Polly.
    ‘Pigs’ hearts? Oh, yuck!’ said Rachel.
    Polly frowned. ‘What’s wrong with that? Everyone knows pigs’ hearts make your brain grow. Mrs M poaches them with onions. Oh, look—there he goes.’
    The meat man had walked towards the screen and then on into the driveway, out of view. For several minutes they stared at the van and then the back of the meat man’s head went past and they saw him return his basket to the rear of the van, walk around, get back in and go.
    ‘It’ll be you next, Freddy,’ said Polly. ‘You came back from youth club right after the meat man came, I remember.’
    She was not wrong. Uncle Jerome sped up the reels and two minutes later Freddy suddenly shot across their view on a large, old-fashioned black bicycle with a basket on the front. Uncle Jerome wound it back— Freddy zooming backwards this time—and then played it at normal speed. Ben felt a shiver run through him. The tape showed a time so obviously fifty-three years old, with the unmade-up road and the 1950s delivery van. But Freddy, jumping off the saddle and wheeling the big black bike in past the gate, looked exactly the same