Two Inventions

Reg and Reta Brannan, Winnipeg, 1930s

My great-grandmother, Reta Brannan, on her 90th birthday, was asked what two inventions during her lifetime had been the most important to her. She thought for a moment and replied, "Teflon and Scotch Tape [akin to Sellotape in the UK]." I didn't think much of this, being only 11 at the time, but later, as I learned more about her life, I understood.

She had been born on a farm in rural Ontario in 1896 - in fact, she'd been born three days earlier than she thought, always believing her birthday to be 21 June when in fact the event was registered on 20 June for a birth on the 18th. 21 June was her baptismal date, where the Catholic priest confused her name with that of her cousin and recorded her as Reta Eulalia D'Arcy rather than Reta Eileen (as she believed her name to be) - or Rita Irene, as recorded by the local registrar of births, when her father told him the name.

When she was only a few years old, her parents left Ontario for the then-Northwest Territories, which included what is now modern-day Saskatchewan. She grew up on their farm, married a Mountie (how Canadian!), and moved around following his work, but after the marriage broke up due to his alcoholism she found herself in a French-speaking town in rural Manitoba, with three small children and a fourth on the way. The only employment available was as a housekeeper to the local postmaster, who provided room and board in return for her work. In an age before Teflon, scrubbing pots and pans by hand would have been a significant chore. She would have wrapped parcels for the postmaster with twine in a time before Scotch tape.

She had a fascinating life, but it is one better told by my grandmother in her memoirs, so I will leave it at that for now.

As I read today that 10 million people in the UK are on Twitter, and of that 80% are active users, I wonder which two inventions I will recall as having had the most impact on my life. The internet, certainly, and...well, there's a lot of time left to go before I'm 90.