ANOTHER VOICE

How the Morris Minor proves that Bob Dylan was wrong

MATTHEW PARRIS

Seated at the wheel of a 1952 Morris Minor a few weeks ago, I reflected on how little technical progress these last 50 years have seen compared with any half-century since the Industrial Revolution. I realise that to those growing older the world seems in a dizzying spin, but it always has: a truth more about ageing than about the world. The world has slowed down. Since the late- Forties, 'the pace of change' has slackened from the Victorians' gallop and the Edwar- dians' canter to a stately post-war trot.

Consider that Morris Minor. I found it for my brother, who has been looking for something about his own age to drive. The car I recommended is identical to that in which I passed my own driving test: just under 900cc, cheese-grater grille, hard-top, split-screen and small back window, pale greeny-grey — and flippers for indicators.

The flippers are now the most obvious anachronism. In what other respects has the petrol-fuelled motor car been devel- oped in the last 50 years? The answer is `scores, but marginal ones'.

Gearbox and transmission are essentially unchanged, except that synchromesh has been added to first gear. Engines were switching then, and have all switched now, from side-valve to overhead valve; more recently, carburettors and distributors have been replaced by electronically driven sys- tems. Fewer cars are rear-wheel-drive now and independent suspension (which Morris already incorporated on the front wheels) has reached the back too, as have disc brakes. Roadholding, acceleration and fuel- economy have improved, but not so much that a new Morris Minor or Ford Zephyr, kept in boxes since the Fifties, could not be put on the road in January 2000 and oper- ated alongside the cars current today; clum- sy but perfectly serviceable. Except that prominent boots have been out, in, out and now back in fashion, even body-styles have kept within the same parameters of design.

But I didn't mention the headlight-dip- per. This is now operated from the steering column and is inferior to the Minor's, which was on the floor. Automatic gears did not take Europe by storm (as they were predicted to) and steering-column gear- levers never caught on; nor did the battery- operated electric car.

Refinements to the carbon-fuelled, inter- nal-combustion-driven automobile — an ingenious finessing of the basic concept — have been legion, but there has been no step-change. I have often wondered why, for instance, we do not have balls-in-sock- ets instead of wheels. In the early 1950s families of (on average) five were driving around on tarmac roads in five-seater motor cars, and in 1999 they still are.

All this would be just an amusing aside, except that it is indicative of the half-centu- ry as a whole. Just consider the 50 years that went before. At the turn of the last century there were almost no motor cars, almost no tarmac, and families were nearly twice the size. Death rates (which have only inched down since the Fifties) were miles higher. It is fair to say that people did not have electricity or travel by air, had no tele- phones, no radio, no television and no access to moving pictures or recording devices. They did not have washing machines or vacuum cleaners. Many had servants, or were servants. Horses and trains provided the main means of land transport. People went to war on horses.

But by the time my brother's Morris Minor was built half a century later that age was utterly gone. What comparable trans- formations have we made since? Few. Air travel is faster and cheaper (though the Douglas DC3 of the early Fifties remains in commercial service) and many families have two cars instead of one. The dual car- riageways being built in the Fifties have been greatly extended. Labour-saving devices have been improved by gadgetry and electronics. And people watch more television, which is now in colour and to which most have access. I put it to you that this is small beer.

How about what we might call social and cultural change? Over the first half-century this had been earth-shattering: women had moved from subjection towards equality. Democracy had become real, as had work- ers' rights. In music, the classical tradition had reached its effective end and jazz, rhythm and pop music had arrived. In the fine arts. . . well, why don't I just let the word 'Picasso' sum up a great deal. Wing collars, frock coats, gloves, top hats and tails had almost gone, and women had started wearing trousers or allowing their legs to show. By 1950 we men were wear- ing white shirts with turned-down collars and ties, two- or three-piece suits, and even venturing out without hats. By 1999 — er, two- or three-piece suits, white shirts, ties. . I still use my sports-jacket from university; the lapel's a bit narrow, that's all.

The emancipation of women has contin- ued, but far more slowly. People divorce more and do not always formalise their marriages, but in other ways family life has remained rather similar. The fine arts have lost the revolutionary momentum of the first half of the century, television has developed in an evolutionary way, dance has become more free-form, and pop music has flowered. Language has coarsened, there are things we now discuss which then we didn't, and the portrayal of some of what was once thought private is more explicit (though listen to that old recording of Noel Coward singing 'Alice is at it again' in a night club in Las Vegas before you fall for the idea that modern Fifties audiences were all that genteel). Otherwise...

Well, rather than make lists, why not try this test? Imagine yourself waking up tomorrow in the Britain of 1952 for which that Morris was built. What adjustments would you have to make? Many, but mostly secondary. In its important aspects that world would be entirely recognisable to a citizen of this one, not uncongenial, and not difficult to live in.

Now suppose a twenty-something young lady of the early Fifties (Margaret Thatcher comes to mind) were to awake in 1902. I submit that the world upon which she would open her eyes would be almost unrecognisable. Bob Dylan was wrong: the times they are not a'changin'. They may be about to. I have not so far mentioned information technology, largely because, though its development and com- mercialisation have been under way for a couple of decades, the impact so far has mostly been to enable us to do with more speed and ease what we were doing already: to live our accustomed lives but with added convenience.

But such is the potential for the speeding up of processes, and for remote control — a tele-action to match television and the tele- phone — which IT offers that the key com- ponents of a step-change may be building UP. It will almost certainly be of a kind which we cannot anticipate. The Morris Minor's flip- pers may be about to become wings.

Matthew Parris is parliamentary sketchwriter and a columnist of the Times.