THE world moves so rapidly these days that yester day is almost ' history ' before to-day is born.
With the increasing tempo of life it becomes more and more difficult to keep our perspective with regard to the generations immediately passed.
It comes with a shock for us to hear our grand-fathers, in reminiscent mood, tell of days to which, for instance, all the thousand and one amenities derived from electricity were unknown. Yet few things are more delightful than hearing of such days from the lips of those who were vividly alive in them : a sense of the continuity of life comes to us and a realisation that to-day, for all its immediate and pressing attractiveness, is only a single link in a chain stretching back. wards as well as forwards.
Sir Alfred Yarrow , who is opening this series of talks in which we are going to look back through the eyes of men and women who were very much alive in days quite different from our own, is himself eighty-eight years of age. His work as a ship - builder has made his name' famous all over the world, his merchant steamers, river steamers, and other kinds of craft being found in every sea.