Re: Social Obstacles, RP & good old Cook


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Posted by Peter Ceresole on October 23, 2003 at 23:07:22 from 80.177.22.49 user PeterC.

In Reply to: Re: Social Obstacles, RP & good old Cook posted by Andrew Craig-Bennett on October 23, 2003 at 22:13:37:

A clue for you - it was written and published before "The Thirty-Nine Steps". "The Riddle of The Sands" was published in 1903, whilst "The Thirty Nine Steps" was published in 1915.

Another curiosity; "Riddle of the Sands" was a kind of de facto manifesto for the National Service League. Once you've finished reading it, it might be fun to look up the League and the accounts of the public effect of "Riddle"- it was part of the long and crucial change in British policy towards involvement with the rest of the world.

An absolutely fascinating period in the lead up to what was the worst and bloodiest period in human history, the 20th Century. AR was in the thick of it during and after the Great War, and later provided one of the most magical antidotes to it. I remember reading (and being read) the books amid the power cuts of 1947-8, huddled round an anthracite stove when the electricity was off. Objectively it was a grim time of rationing and burst pipes, but for me as a child the books were part of a happy and secure world.

But then that's children... In 1985 I interviewed a woman about the end of the war 40 years before. She was now living in Colchester, married to a British soldier and working as a physio with the Army, but in '45 she was a child of 6 in Berlin. I asked her what it had been like. "Wonderful!" she said. There was no school, they played in the ruins, she even had a little hammer and a job straightening nails. She discovered that as a child of six, even the Russian soldiers were nice to her. "That was when I realised that looking helpless was going to be the key to my survival." When I talked to her, she had become a wonderfully attractive woman, with a great Romy Schneider look about her, perfectly manipulative but totally above board with it. She'd learnt a whole lot; her husband was a lucky man. I've always liked clever, straight, charming women- I think that's why I liked the character of Dorothea more than any of the others.


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