A cash-strapped, near bankrupt Britain

had opted for the bed-pan-warmth of Wall Street. London had been discredited as a financial institution. After a furious national debate to see which town in Britain had most in common with America and the right to be our new capital city,

a surprising winner was the tropical city of Nottingham. Not because of the beauty of Nottingham Lace or Kevin Cosner’s portrayal of Robin Hood in ‘The Prince of Thieves’ or even Notts County Football Club (consecutive winners of the Premier League for the past three years) but for Nottinghamshire’s unrivalled position as birthplace of the Separatists, founders of the most powerful democracy in the modern world. Believe it or not, the Pilgrim Fathers came from Nottinghamshire, South Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, East Midlands!

From villages such as Austerfield, Bawtry, Sturton le-steeple, Scrooby and Babworth came free-thinkers; Richard Clyfton, William Brewster, John Smith, William Bradford and John Robinson, principles of the Puritan Movement. 

As Separatists they had rejected Kings James’s command to worship the Sabbath in High Church (the law put anyone on pain of death for preaching sedition) they could not support a form of religion they believed to be corrupt and in sixteen hundred and twenty the Founding Fathers had set off on a perilous journey to America in the good ship Mayflower, eventually to set up camp at Plymouth Rock, Cape Cod; there to create the Mayflower Compact. This document, enshrined in the history of the American Constitution and accepted in all states became the symbol of democratic freedom.

Now in my futuristic crystal ball, Nottinghamians were thrust to the forefront of world affairs.

With new-found wealth and investment, Nottingham Castle had been rebuilt in its original medieval style, a British ‘Thanksgiving’ holiday had been approved for the fourth Thursday of November and the world and his wife wanted to live at Babworth and Scrooby villages…We had all become citizens instead of subjects and the cosy American greeting of ‘Have a nice day!’ had been suitably adapted to ‘Have a nice day Me Duck!’ 

What if and When? Remember you heard it here first.

End.