I was feeling lazy and wasn’t going to post any excerpts from my latest book read, Where Stands a Wingèd Sentry, Margaret Kennedy’s account of life in England between May and September 1940 when, it seems, all of England was expecting the Germans to invade pretty much any day. It was an interesting read, though what I’d really like to see is her actual, not-edited-for-publication-in-the-US-in-1940 diary, because there’s no doubt this was published as useful propaganda.
But The Captive Reader, whose review I've linked to in my books list, helpfully quoted a nice little self-contained and amusing bit so I'm copying and pasting that bit of text here. It's the exchange Ms Kennedy had with the local doctor about getting “a bromide,” aka sleeping pills:
I still cannot sleep so I went to Dr Middleton to ask for a bromide. He used to attend all our family in the old days. He asked:
“Are ye worrying about anything?”
When I said I was worrying about Hitler coming, he said, “He won’t,” so firmly that I almost believed him. He looked me up and down very crossly and said:
“I suppose ye’ve been reading the newspapers?”
I pleaded guilty.
“What d’ye want to do that for?”
“I like to know what is happening.”
“Aw! The newspapers don’t know.”
He said if I must read a newspaper I should stick to The Times because I would find there any news there was, put in a way that would send me to sleep instead of keeping me awake. He said that when a war broke out once in the Balkans and there were scare headlines in all the streets, The Times headline said: ACTIVITY IN EUROPE.
He asked me how often I listened to the wireless.
“Four times a day.”
“And that’s three times too often. I’m sure I wish that infernal contrivance had never been invented. When I think of all the insanity that’s poured out over the ether every minute of the day, I wonder the whole human race isn’t in a lunatic asylum. And what good does it do ye to know what’s happening? Ye aren’t responsible. Ye don’t like it. Ye can’t stop it. Why think about it? Go home and fly kites with your children.”
“How many other patients have you said all this to?”
“You’re only the twenty-seventh this week.
--pp 72 - 73 of the new Handheld Press edition of Where Stands a Wingèd Sentry
Ah. Thank you for the apt excerpt. Dr. Middleton *understands*! I need to store this somewhere for anytime someone asks me why I avoid the news. I was ever so calm for the five months when I went news-free, and then two weeks ago I started checking it again (starting lightly, with The Guardian, but then making the mistake of moving on to abc). Aieee. "Activity" indeed! Well, it's back to Dr. Middleton's prescription for me...and I'll just say that I never had trouble sleeping during those blissfully ignorant five months. And it is much more enjoyable to just take the Hounds for a stroll along the river than to worry and fret the days away.
ReplyDeleteI do so like old-fashioned words such as "bromide" which have sadly been replaced by duller terms. Sigh.