IN THE BEGINNING

In 2011 with my wife I moved to Spain.

We at first had an apartment close to the Mar Menor in the Murcia region. In the first winter it actually snowed, I was amazed being so far south. We were told that this occurred occasionally.
That night I dreamed I dreamed that I was ten and it snowed yellow snow. in the morning I recalled the dream, which was actually a fact, also recalling that 5000 people were dying in London in the 1950s. As a result the burning of coal in open fires were banned. Even in 2011 the environment was becoming a major concern. I decided to write with that and other facts in my mind, also I wanted to know what people from another world would think about us as we slowly but surely were destroying our planet and of course eventually ourselves.

When I retired I found I needed other interests. Thinking back to my youth I looked for anything unusual, apart from the 2nd world war and my sister and I being evacuated. On our return to London life got back to normal, I was going to school one morning, it was snowing, but this snow was yellow and when we had fog it was yellow, so it was called smog. When starting senior school I cycled to school with a scarf covering my mouth, at the weekend, through the winter months the scarf had ten very black smudges on it. When I started work these smogs worsened and in the 1950s 5000 died in London alone from smoke inhalation and car exhaust fumes.       Finally, the burning of coal was banned, but the cars were still there and had since increased tenfold when I started writing The Crystals in 1911. My thoughts were when and how this contamination would end and how would the air breathing creatures survive. I wondered also how intelligent life from another world would think of our slow but sure road to the cessation of life on Earth.  I have Asthma and Critical Obstructive Pulmonary disease. But I have hope that the world leaders are taking notice, my only concern is that greed and self-interest might still prevail.

Peter Buckle

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