29th October 2011, 01:34 PM
I read a short story years ago (can't remember title or author) about time travel. A history student was offered the opportunity to go on one of the first 'journies' and he hoped to go back to meet St Paul - learned Hebrew and Latin etc to help him out. Due to a glitch he ended up at St Paul's Cathedral during the blitz and helped the team of fire fighters constantly on the roof. He was heard muttering "what have we done?" by one of the team and they assumed he was a German spy (he didn't really fit in). In his future time St Paul's had been blown up by a terrorist attack with a dirty bomb. He was whisked back to his own time to discover it wasn't a glitch - his Professor just wanted him to see the humanity behind all history, even the most momentous events. (I might have remembered this all wrong - but the concept has stayed with me).