Re: WW I not WW II


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Posted by Peter H on January 12, 2006 at 19:05:23 from 86.130.138.54 user Peter_H.

In Reply to: Re: WW I not WW II posted by Adam Quinan on January 12, 2006 at 13:16:45:

I am curious why Peter H doesn't accept Bob Blackett's death as a result of WW1

Well, we don't have to accept any explanation if we don't want to, because its all speculative fiction anyway. We are dealing in mere likelihoods here. If we knew that BB had died, say, in 1916, then yes, there would be some sort of likelihood (I'd put it no stronger) that he had died at the Somme. However, if he was killed in that war, this must have happened near the end of hostilities when the daily fatality list was much smaller.

My real point is that we mustn't overlook the fact that people were dying in Britain during the war from all the causes that people died of at that period. It seems perfectly possible for BB to have developed peritonitis whilst out on the fells, or for that matter to have had a fatal fall. He might have been knocked down by a runaway horse in a Cockermouth street. I am not being flippant - there are almost an infinite number of causes of death one can think up. What we have to look at is 'likelihoods', but even then the whole thing is so speculative that, to me, it's just an impossible quest. I know this sounds dull, but I don't accept any specific cause for BB's death because we just don't know, and never will know.

(However, that doesn't stop us guessing, and I'm all for that . . .)


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