My new global reach puts the world in a spin

The world is now in my grasp, at my very fingertips, and I can even make it spin backwards if I so wish. 

Am I mad? Or have I acquired superpowers?  

No, I have bought myself a globe - and not a modern one. It's not exactly an antique, but it dates from 1964 and is therefore very nearly sixty years old, and shows the countries of the world as they were back then. 

There you are. Made by George Philip & Son of Fleet Street, London (they are still publishing road atlases, though the firm is no longer family-owned), with the date '1964' clearly shown. The globe is made, I think, of very stiff cardboard or papier-mâché, with strips of thick printed paper stuck onto the spherical surface. That might have to be done by hand, very carefully, and therefore slowly. A bit like hand-finishing painted china. It could be that my globe was made in 1963, or certainly well in advance of Christmas 1964, its likely time of sale, and so really reflects the world as it was in the aftermath of the Cuban Missile crisis, and President Kennedy's subsequent assassination. The 1960s were turbulent, full of strife and assassinations, with the threat of nuclear annihilation ever present. And yet life carried on: it was also the decade in which foreign package holidays got going in a big way.  

I was eleven in 1963, and already the possessor of two world atlases. The mysterious and enticing places of the world fascinated me. But back then there was not the slightest prospect of my family travelling to any of them. So my travel dreams were all atlas-based. 

I had however seen another way of exploring the world, one that showed exactly where every place really was, and - critically - what the true distances were, which you couldn't appreciate from a map, because of the limitations of the projection used. Only a globe can show the world properly. I'd seen (and had gaped in wonder) at a large globe like this:

It was at the home of a boy friend whose parents lived in a very large house in the best part of Barry. This house had a large reception room with an elegant staircase leading upstairs, and near the huge stone fireplace, next to the sofas and chairs, was this big globe. It seemed immense to an eleven year old child. It was a large piece of furniture in its own right, and moved around the floor on castors. My parents had nothing to compare with this at my own home. They'd given me a very small metal-and-plastic globe, which really wasn't much practical use. This took my breath away. But then Grenville - that was the boy's name - lived in another world. He had one of the first electronic toys I ever saw. Of course it was crude compared to what was available for kids in the 1970s and later. But hey, amazing and eye-popping for the early 1960s!

I hardly dared touch that huge globe on castors. But I never forgot it. The modern version, rather more high-tech, and costing a princely £12,500, would be (on cost alone) forever beyond my ownership ambitions. But a smaller globe, a table-top globe, costing a lot less: yes, I'd be very content with that.

But it was hardly a priority item. As the years passed, I inspected examples in antique shops and bric-a-brac shops shops, but I didn't buy, either because they were too expensive or because they weren't very useful as three-dimensional world maps. This collection of globes, seen in a shop at Petworth last year, was perhaps the best I ever came across. None of them was any good. 

Buying a globe remained on my list of possible presents to myself. It didn't have to be a brand-new globe. I was equally attracted to an older, pre-loved globe - if I could find one at a price I'd be prepared to pay. My budget went as far as £100 or so. But I really didn't want to pay much over £50, especially not for a second-hand example. I looked on the Internet, but the rule there seemed to be top prices for old globes, unless the thing were distinctly battered. I decided that it was risking serious disappointment to buy one on the basis of just a photograph and a brief description, and especially from some retailer I'd never heard of.

And then four days ago I was in Worthing, and saw this in the shop window of British Heart Foundation:

Aha! An old but nice-looking globe on a pedestal, for only £25. As it was a charity shop, no alarm bells need ring at the low price. I wanted to take a closer look, but they had just closed for the day (it was 5.00pm) So I took that picture, and studied it carefully once I'd processed it. The globe still looked all right. But social commitments meant I couldn't go back and perhaps buy it next day, nor the day after. Would someone else buy it meanwhile? Well, if it was meant to be mine, it would still be there. 

I went back first thing yesterday. It was in the window. Nobody had nabbed it.

Making enquiries, I learned that it had been in their window for some time, so I needn't have panicked. Was anything wrong with it? Not that I could see. It didn't fall apart as the man lifted it out of the window and placed it in my hands. It wasn't obviously damaged in any way. The globe turned on its spindles, though not very freely. Really, it seemed a lightly-worn example of a mid-twentieth century globe, datable to a period after the territories that were once part of the French and British empires had got their independence. But nevertheless there were many old-style names, like Persia, Ceylon, Burma and Siam; and Peking for Beijing. And of course the USSR was very much in evidence, as it would be for another twenty-five years. 

On the whole, a globe that conjured up the world I grew up in. £25 seemed a very good price, and I bought it without further ado.

Closer examination back home was reassuring. There were a few biro marks in blue here and there, like the random scribbles of a child. They were mainly on the oceans and didn't show up much. The chrome meridian and the black bakelite or plastic base were in great condition, dusty but perfectly firm and undamaged. The North Pole area was (as expected) almost pristine.

The South Pole area was however in trouble. The weight of the globe, small but telling over the years, had made it bear down on the chrome spacer, and this had enlarged the spindle hole until the spacer had fallen inside, where it was now doomed to stay for all time, rattling around. With the spacer gone, the globe touched the arc of the chromed meridian, and that was why it was not revolving freely. Clearly I needed to insert a new spacer, to lift the globe off the meridian, and stop further wear of the spindle hole, and scuffing of the paper gores. I rummaged around in the garage, and found a hard plastic disc with a hole in it. I cut out a section, so that I could push it onto the spindle. This would be its underside: the smooth flat upper side would rest against the globe.

It worked! I saved the planet!

My globe would now revolve at a light touch. There was still a bit of resistance to fast spinning, but the thing wasn't a toy, and I wouldn't be doing that. 

I was very pleased indeed with my purchase. It looked very good in one corner of my lounge, near the little window.

It struck me that the globe, viewed from the other end of my lounge, was the same size as the real Earth would appear, if I were looking at it from the Moon. 

You can be pessimistic about the future - people have been throughout human history - but from the Moon the Earth is a small and distant place, and it would be easy to feel that pressing terrestrial problems were in fact of no significance in the grand scheme of things. Still less so the decrees of dictators, or the sabre-rattlings of rogue states. Only gravity and the reactions of elements matter, if your viewpoint is cosmic enough.

Mind you, closer contemplation of my globe told me at once that North Korea's endeavour to make a missile that could reach the United States of America was truly a mighty one. Even California would be an extraordinary feat. New York or Washington DC would be harder still. But if North Korea did manage it, then my globe told me that every important place in the Northern Hemisphere would be within range, as would Australia and New Zealand. Only Africa south of the Sahara, and South America, would be too far away. 

So most nations need to keep an eye on what is happening in that little country. China is the best hope, the best shield as it were. True, China currently keeps North Korea afloat, like somebody might keep a fierce, half-starved tiger under control as a pet. I dare say that, despite the risks, China finds it convenient to let North Korea make threatening noises. But China is as vulnerable to North Korean attack as any more distant country. After South Korea and Japan, it's the next in line as a nuclear target. So I really hope that if treachery occurs, China can quickly press a few buttons and defend itself adequately, or even neutralise the missiles before they can do harm. If not, then Moon observers will have a good view of the fireworks.