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Schoolgirl's spooky 1969 essay on the future makes chillingly accurate prediction

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The essay, written by a young school girl and stuffed down the back of a sofa only to be found 55 years later, predicted Zoom calls and high-tech TVs would become part of future life

Schoolgirl's spooky 1969 essay on the future makes chillingly accurate prediction

A young schoolgirl predicted some of the key advancements in home tech, 55 years before their advent.

With unnervingly weird accuracy, the unnamed 11-year old foresaw video-calling which has permeated personal and professional lives since the pandemic. Other predictions, like a whole meal in the form of a stick of chewing gum similar to the three-course-meal Veruca Salt chomped in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, have not evolved, yet.

A young schoolgirl predicted some of the key advancements in home tech, 55 years before their advent.

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The girl's vision of future life and technology was suppose to illustrate the "far off year of 1980" and was discovered by upholsterer Peter Beckerton while he was refurbishing an old sofa for a client.

Dated February 23, 1969, the essay starts with the girl imagining her future husband coming home from work.

With slightly imperfect spelling, she writes: “’Hello dear,’ he said to me. ‘I’ve just got to ring up my friend on the telephone’. ’Well you’d better tidy yourself up a bit,’ I said. In 1969 the telephone was a square box thing with a receiver on top of it. But now it is still a receiver, but you can see the people you are talking to, for there is a screen where you can see the people. It is a bit like a television.”

Dated February 23, 1969, the essay starts with the girl imagining her future husband coming home from work.

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The essay doesn’t foresee all the technological advances we enjoy today

Instead of a smart TV with remote controls or voice commands the TV is described as “a big screen with knobs on your chair arm to switch it on and off”. Mealtimes, too, haven’t lived up to the young girl’s 1960s imaginings: “All we have is a piece of chewing gum to eat. You may think that we have not enough to eat but you are wrong, because this piece of chewing gum is food.”

The essay doesn’t foresee all the technological advances we enjoy today