Long To Reign

Charlie Whitcomb's attitude to the late nineteenth century is that of Jack Finney's time traveling character's:

"Whitcomb got a faraway look in his eyes. 'I'd like to have lived here,' he said.
"'Yeah? With their medicine and dentistry?'
"'And no bombs falling.' Whitcomb's answer held a defiance." ("Time Patrol" IN Time Patrol, p. 28)

Whitcomb's fiancee was killed by a V-bomb in London in 1944. Later, however, he gets his wish. Charlie and Mary Whitcomb live in London from 1850, knowing that Victoria, having already reigned from 1837, will not die until 1901. The remainder of their lives will be spent during her reign.

I was born in 1949. Elizabeth II has reigned since 1952. Thus, I have no memory of any previous monarch. I would like to be employed by the Time Patrol to live through the 1950s in the town where I grew up, making a full sensory recording of the decade. I would see my younger self at church and would listen to the sermons and even the Latin liturgy with some understanding. To re-experience the '50s without the limitations of a child's mentality, and to know what was coming and when, while also being able to vacation in other periods without missing a moment of the 1950s! I would also want to make some changes but would not be able to get away with that in a timeline guarded by the Time Patrol.