Ben Sansum is 35. But he lives in 1946. His clothes, his house, the music he listens to - all come from an era before he was even born. BBC News went to meet Ben at home in Cambridgeshire.
Self-study activity:
Watch the video and answer the questions below about it. The activity is suitable for Intermediate 2 and Advanced students.
1 How old is the Victorian range he's still using?
2 What does Ben do?
3 What's one of the favourite parts of the house? Why?
4 What concession has he made to the 40's?
5 Is Ben into a relationship?
6 Who was the original owner of the Victorian mangle he inherited from his grandmother?
7 What does Ben think of personal relationships these days?
I guess I was always the funny boy at school who had this interest, strange interest. But gradually as I grew older I loved the music, and the cars and the fashion. My name is Ben Sansum, and for years now I’ve been fascinated with history, particularly the 40s, so I decided to recreate the 40s as much as I could in my own home.
I’m 35 now. My parents probably thought I would grow out of this but I will always live by this now, I will never grow out of it and I shall probably die living like this but that’s fine because I’m ensuring their way of life isn’t forgotten.
And the heart of the house really is the Victorian range, 1890’s, fully restored, every nut and bolt working perfectly in and after (1) 120 years, marvellous. I use it all the time in winter. It’s fantastic. Endless supply of hot water and great fun but hard work. Blacking the range every day is filthy.
I have a very sort of modern life in one sense. (2) I’m BA cabin crew, so sort of jetting off, then I like to come home and retreat and go back in time in my own little period house.
This is the master bedroom. Being a Victorian house, it’s more Victorian up here because in the 30’s visitors used the bedroom, the front room, so that’s where you had all the art décor and modern stuff, but the older part of the house where visitors wouldn’t see, it had all the hand-me-downs of Victorian furniture.
(3) One of my favourite parts about the house is the location, the view outside this window hasn’t changed for perhaps 1,000 years, being the older town church. It’s a pity we have the modern traffic, can’t do much about that.
I’ve got one or two concessions to the 40’s. I don’t do microwaves and dishwashers, I don’t go that far but (4) I do have a fridge I’m afraid, meat saves not great these days. I’ve got a fridge, sorry!
I think years ago I used to hope that one day I’d have someone live with me and be sort of compatible, but I think my interest is so strange that (5) my partner has a modern house and I have a period house, so we have a house each, it’s great because not everyone wants to live like that, I appreciate that.
This is my older walk-on back yard, the court yard garden. My absolute pride and joy is a locally made mangle here. My grandmama actually used this, (6) belonged to a neighbour of hers. And it’s made right here in our town, it’s a Victorian, again survived a hundred years. What can you buy now that you’ll still be able to use in a hundred’s years time. It’s incredible, really.
I think it’s so true now that the world moves so incredibly fast. I… I mean, I’m 35 and I can’t keep up with it. I don’t understand Twitter and iphones, and I really don’t understand… technology moves so fast. I think we are more isolated today, I mean, we can have hundreds of friends on Facebook but do you go out and chat to your next-door neighbour over the fence of the house, you know, it’s scary. (7) Today I think we are more isolated and we’ve lost such a lot that I’m just trying to hold on to some of the old, old world charms of that period for as long as I can.
