In a, frankly rare, moment of solipsism, I googled myself and discovered that there was a settler in a place called Southold in colonial New York called Giles Booth. (There was also an Obadiah Booth and a Mehitophel Booth too – I bet they were just a couple of crazy guys.)
Then the other night the good people at BBC Four showed a Play for Today called The Flip-side of Dominic Hide, which I first saw when I was precisely one third the age I am today. It made a big impression on me all those years ago, and evidently made a big impression on the composer Michael Tippett too, as he pinched the plot for one of his operas.
It’s a lovely story about a man who travels back in time to the present (1980) to collect information on London Transport. But he discovers that there was a man in London in 1980 with the same name as him – Dominic Hide – and he resolves to find him. It turns out that he fathers a child in 1980, the Dominic Hide of 1980 is in fact his son.
So as I fell asleep I wondered if I, or my descendents, be travelling back to colonial New York to trace the other Giles Booth..?