At my age, a fond remembrance of the past is natural and understandable. And it occurred again just days ago, when I discovered that a favorite television series of mine from the late 1980s is available to view on YouTube. The show was called The Secret Life of Machines, and featured Tim Hunkin and his sidekick Rex Garrod. In the three seasons of the show, Hunkin explained the basic working principles of common, everyday items we all use. The automobile, the vacuum cleaner, the refrigerator, the television. And so on. Delivered in a charmingly unpolished and casual style, using clever but simple demonstration devices, and peppered with delightfully crude animated sequences, Hunkin conveyed the principles of all the machines we use without thinking about, and have never considered the history that led to their present day form. I loved watching the show on my local PBS television station over 30 years ago, so I was thrilled to recently learn that Hunkin has himself released all episodes of the show in remastered form on his YouTube channel. And following each episode, Tim himself makes a few comments about what went into filming that episode, or what has become of the technology over the past decades. I'm now working my way through all the episodes and enjoying the memories that have come flooding back.
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