Chapter 6: An Ugly Future

August 1966, age 11

In the summer of 1966, Jimmy Savile was already a well-known figure. He had been the face of ‘Top Of The Pops’ since it began on television in 1964 and had been on the radio even longer. I had watched the show every week since discovering television a year earlier, so for me to find that this man that I was in awe of was actually a prolific child abuser was a hell of a shock.

As Grandpa sat behind the old oak desk in his study, a look of recognition came over him, and he just said: “Ah, I see”.

I was still full of rage, and almost shouted, “We have to do something! We can’t just let him go on hurting children for years and years!”

“What would you like to do Finn?”

His question spilled the wind from my sails, and my open mouth had no words ready to come out.

Grandpa went on, “I agree he’s a terrible man, but there are lots of terrible men in the world and some terrible women too. Are you going to try and stop them all? And tell me this: have you thought about the bad things that could happen if you do somehow stop him?”

“What d’you mean?”

“I mean that even the simplest of changes to the timeline will start chains of events that we can’t fully predict. Some good, some bad. And sometimes a really bad incident can have a good outcome.”

I just stood silently, stunned that he might deliberately allow something terrible to happen.

“For example,” he continued, “in a few years time a black teenager is going to get murdered in London, and the police are going to screw up the investigation. That will spark national outcry, and a major enquiry will find the police racist. It was an awful incident with a kid dying, but a good outcome because the police were forced to change for the better. So though painful, it might be better not to try and prevent that murder.”

My head was spinning.

“On the other hand, I decided a long time ago that I was going to change history to my own advantage. I’ve already made hundreds of changes to history. Most of them are low impact but breaking you out of the orphanage was a massive change that will create ripples the rest of your life. For example, when you got into the grammar school, someone else got turned down because you took their place. That’s not what fate intended, but I made those changes for the good of our family. I’d do it again, and fuck the rest of the world. ‘Scuse my French.”

He had been playing God. I was only just beginning to understand the enormity of that. The bad language hardly even registered.

“I’m not saying we can’t do something about Jimmy Savile, or try to make the world better. But unless it’s for the good of our family, we always need to look at the possible outcomes and judge whether intervening would make things better or worse. We have to figure out which would be the greater good. Do you understand?”

I finally found my voice and protested: “How would letting kids get abused make the world better?”

“Because when Savile eventually gets found out, it begins a flood of other revelations and brings child abuse to the nation’s awareness as never before. But I think you’re probably right. This time, it would be better to stop him now. I’m just asking that you think through consequences, even when it seems obvious.”

I sat down in a chair in front of his desk and tried to force my brain to think clearly for a moment. Then asked, “Can I ask you two questions?”

He nodded patiently.

“Isn’t it bad for us to change history for our own good if it hurts other people? And if we can’t predict all the results, isn’t that dangerous?”

“Bad? Maybe. Selfish? Definitely, but that’s my responsibility, not yours. You can’t undo the changes I’ve made. Once a stone lands in a pond, you can’t stop the ripples, can you? There’s only one person in the world that’s protected from changes in time, and that’s me. But I’ll explain that another day. Dangerous? Yes, very. But some things are so terrible that it’s worth the risk to try and change them, don’t you think?”

I just sat and thought for a little while as Grandpa watched me. Eventually, I decided: “We can’t just stand by twiddling our thumbs, knowing he’s hurting kids. That makes us guilty too.” I saw a hint of understanding on his face. “Do something, please?”

“You’re no fun anymore!”, Caity announced to me the following day. We had about two weeks left of the summer holiday, and she was probably right. I’d been distracted. But I could fix that.

“I’m no fun?! I’m the bestest, funnest brother in the world! I think you need tickling to remind you!” With that, she shrieked, and we were back to normal. I spent the next ten minutes chasing her around the house and tickling my little sister as promised to extract an admission of my omnipotence. We then spent the rest of the day playing and swimming, and I worked at balancing my time better from then on.

I often thought about the Jimmy Savile problem, but there was no quick come back. Just before school resumed, I wandered into Grandpa’s study with something else on my mind. I led him into the panic room and pulled out the iPad.

“Do you remember when I got upset because lots of people are going to die?”

“I do. So have you found a way to save the world?”

He meant it to be funny, but I was serious. “Yes, I think so.”

He furrowed his brow, probably wondering what the hell I was on about.

“How much do you know about HIV and AIDS?”, I asked him.

“Probably a lot more than you”, he replied a little testily.

“Did you know that there’s an outbreak of HIV right now, 1966, in Haiti?”

That shut him up! I handed him the iPad and waited while he read.

“Apparently so”, he eventually replied. “You’ve got my attention. What are you thinking?”

“I’m not sure. It’s just, it’s this terrible disease that’s going to hit millions, and right now the only people who know it exists are you and me. Right? I was wondering, what if we could change that?”

I saw the lightbulb come on in Grandpa’s head. I may not have understood all the details of what the books said on the topic or known how best to proceed, but it wasn’t hard to identify a missed opportunity with future hindsight. He went back to the iPad and re-read it. “D’you know, we could actually do this. It wouldn’t take much. Sponsor a small team of scientists to go out there and we could kick-start HIV research fifteen years early.” Then I saw a shadow cross his face. “What about the balance of consequences? Did you think about that?”

“I did. Saving maybe thousands of lives would be a huge change to the timeline. I know that, and I know it’s possible that someone we save could go on to be a murderer or something. But it’s obvious, isn’t it, that saving thousands of lives would be worth the risk?”

“Yes, you’re right it is”, he replied. He went back to reading the iPad and muttered to himself, “We’d have to be careful not to show that we already know more than we should. It would need delicate handling...”

It took Grandpa a little while to convince himself, then suddenly came out with: “This is a good idea. I’ll get it started.”

Somehow I thought there would be more fanfare, but ‘I’ll get it started’ was all I got. It might make a difference to people further down the line, but for now, it was just a two-minute conversation that I could now forget about for years.

When September arrived a feeling of dread came with it, as I would be starting a new school. Not only was Raynes Park County Grammar School much bigger than my primary school, but it also had kids from lots of different schools feeding into it, and all of them were brainy. Despite having apparently done well on my eleven plus, I just didn’t see myself fitting into that mould.

To my great relief, I found out on the first morning that I was in the same form as Peter and our friend Tommy, and that several of our classes were the same. Because of the large year-groups, they ranked us by ability for ‘core’ subjects, putting us into top set, second set and so on. No surprise that I was in the bottom set for Maths! Both Peter and I were in set one for English, and Peter was set one for Science whereas I was set two. History, Geography, French, Latin, Music and Art were all done in our tutor groups. PE was the greatest disappointment for me, as there was no swimming. It was all football, rugby, cricket and athletics. That quickly became one of my least favourite parts of the week.

Within a couple of weeks at grammar school, one thing became very clear: I needed a tutor again. After the eleven plus exam a year ago I had stopped tutoring. Big mistake! I now needed help again. Fast. And not just in maths either. I loathed admitting it, but only when Tony resumed daily sessions with me did grammar school become a surmountable challenge.

The success of my suggestion to Grandpa about HIV had buoyed up my confidence enough to have another go at suggesting something to him. But this time, I didn’t go straight to the top. First, I went to Dan. I dragged him up to my room one afternoon after school and laid the idea out.

“You know how I’ve been a bit obsessed with movies since Thunderball?” I may have mentioned it to him once or twice in our car journey conversations. “I was reading about films that are going to be big in the future. I’ve got an idea, but I need some help planning it out. It’s got to be secret, though. I don’t want Grandpa to know till I’m ready.”

“I think I can keep a secret”, Dan said with a smirk. “When I was in the SAS my job was to plan top secret missions that nobody could ever find out about. I even did some work with MI6. I could tell you about it, but then I’d have to kill you.”