The CBB :: View topic - Those folk who might not be out-of-doors

Those folk who might not be out-of-doors

through

[^/[^Print]\]

The CBB -> Anything Else

#1: Those folk who might not be out-of-doors Author: Rob, Location: Currently in a rainstorm

Posted: Wed Jul 11, 2007 10:36 pm
—
I was just (re-)reading Trials in paperback, when I came across the following sentence which I found destinctly odd:

Quote:

The pantomine was always a matinee for the sake of those folk who might not be out-of-doors, once night had fallen.

I assume (although I may be wrong) that it refers to people who were at the Platz due to their health (TB?) but why shouldn't they be out at night? Is it because it will be colder? or wetter? or something at night? If so what if it was raining in the day time? Would they just not have attended the pantomine? If not what does it mean? Was there a social stigma to do with being out at night? Is it elaberated on in the hardback at all?

#2: Author: Pat, Location: Doncaster

Posted: Wed Jul 11, 2007 10:43 pm
—
I think that there was a feeling that it was unwise to be out after dark if you were unwell in any way. Plus an evening show would mean that they would be uo kater than was probably considered wise.

#3: Author: KB, Location: Melbourne, Australia

Posted: Wed Jul 11, 2007 10:47 pm
—
But the very interesting part, of course, is the fact that often TB patients were put out on balconies to sleep at night. Those who survived were wheeled back in in the mornings. Presumably the comment in Trials showed that treatments had changed since the school began in the mid-1920s/early 1930s.

#4: Author: Sugar, Location: second star to the right!

Posted: Wed Jul 11, 2007 10:47 pm
—
It's not just mentioned in trials, its mentioned earlier in the series in relation to Robin. It is to do with people who have TB, a risk of TB or respiratory problems. I think but I maybe wrong but its something to do with air temperature and mist in the mountains.

Why should there condition prohibit them from attending at all... most theatres have matinees and why should they miss and not attend a matinee ??? And what on earth social stigma would there be for people being out at night to go to a school panto? Thats got me very confused.

#5: Author: Róisín, Location: Ireland

Posted: Wed Jul 11, 2007 10:49 pm
—
The night air was always considered bad by the country folk in Enid Blyton - but not by the main characters who always opened their window wide...

It's confusing. On one hand, the attitude is that fresh air is wonderful and curative (Robin in the train in Headgirl), on the other hand that a bit of it will be the death of you (Joey in that doorway scene).

Maybe the difference is the temperature and time of year, rather than it being particularly dark out Confused

#6: Author: Pat, Location: Doncaster

Posted: Wed Jul 11, 2007 10:51 pm
—
I also think that EBD had some very odd ideas about health and illness at the best of times!

#7: Author: Sugar, Location: second star to the right!

Posted: Wed Jul 11, 2007 10:52 pm
—

KB wrote:

But the very interesting part, of course, is the fact that often TB patients were put out on balconies to sleep at night. Those who survived were wheeled back in in the mornings.

LOL you make it sound like a deliberate attempt to bump them off KB!

#8: Author: KB, Location: Melbourne, Australia

Posted: Wed Jul 11, 2007 10:52 pm
—
I think the Robin and train issue comes about because of the number of people in a very, very small compartment. They can't have the door open, obviously, because people might come in and pinch things, so they try for the window. It's a bit like that scene in New CS on the bus - having the window open even a fraction allows a bit of fresh air and stops people from getting headaches from the stuffiness. It's the fact that the Stuffer wants them completely shut that's the problem.

#9: Author: Róisín, Location: Ireland

Posted: Wed Jul 11, 2007 10:54 pm
—
There's the man who comes along to help - the fresh air fiend - wasn't he a doctor in the San? Or visiting the San? I can't remember much about him except he had Ideas.

#10: Author: Pat, Location: Doncaster

Posted: Wed Jul 11, 2007 10:58 pm
—
In the Stuffer incident! Was he an astronomer? Or am I imagining that?

#11: Author: Róisín, Location: Ireland

Posted: Wed Jul 11, 2007 11:06 pm
—

Quote:

The light of battle came into Miss Maynard's eyes, and it is to be feared that she forgot her position as a mistress as she replied, "Pardon me, but that window shall not remain shut tightly. It is exceedingly bad for anyone to sleep with closed windows; and in a small place as this compartment is, I will not permit the children to sleep without fresh air coming in." She got up, made her way to the window, and opened it again to its former width. Then she went carefully back to her seat and sat down.
At once "the Stuffer," as naughty Jo christened her, bounced up and pulled the window up again. "I shall complain to the company!" she thundered.
The noise woke the Robin, who began to cry, partly from fright, partly because her head was aching from the unaccustomed close atmosphere in which she had been sleeping, and a big hairy professor from next door came to request that they would hush the child and cease their conversations and Kaffeeklatschen, as he and his comrades wished to sleep.
In a few words Jo explained the situation - Miss Maynard was too busy hushing the wailing Robin. The professor heard her to the end; then he made his way into their compartment, banged down the window to its fullest extent, with various objurgations about "women fools" who lived in an oven-like atmosphere, and retired to his own place, leaving the two ladies gasping and breathless, Miss Maynard on the verge of wild laughter, and Jo - Grizel slept through all this! - staring with round black eyes.
"Joey, do you know who that was?" asked Miss Maynard, when finally she had recovered her self-control.
"Not an earthly," replied Jo. "He hasn't much opinion of women, has he?"
"He was like Fazere Christmas," observed the Robin, now calmed and happy.
"It was Professor Christian von der Witt of Wien," said Miss Maynard. "He is a fresh-air fiend - sleeps in his garden all the year round, I believe. Now, Robin, I am going to tuck you in again, and you must go off to sleep like a good Madchen."
"Yes," responded the Robin drowsily; "it is so nice - now - the air – is - com-ing-"

The all-year-round bit is interesting.

Quote:

"It seems likely," he said, when she had finished. "As you say, the very fact that the peasants fear the spot would help to keep it secret through all these years. If it is so, then it is to you two that they will owe it. Herr Professor von der Witt is coming soon to see if he can find them. He is interested in the question, for he is a great geologist, as you may have heard.”
"We've seen him," said Jo eagerly. "In the train! Remember, Grizel? The man who came and shoved down the carriage window when 'the Stuffer' would have it up!"

Geologist. So not a doctor at all! Bah - we'll have to discount his medical opinion then Laughing

#12: Author: Elder in Ontario, Location: Ontario, Canada

Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2007 12:21 am
—
Ah, but might this be an EBD-ism - using the same name for two different people who, after all, only make a 'fleeting' appearance in the canon? Just wondering.....!

#13: Author: Cath V-P, Location: Newcastle NSW

Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2007 12:00 pm
—
Dunno - but the description of him as a big hairy professor had me mildly hysterical. Laughing

#14: Author: Chris, Location: Nottingham

Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2007 12:11 pm
—
When my son was young (1 - Cool

he had asthma, and if he was out as it got dark or after, his coughing was definitely worse. Might have been the damp?

#15: Author: Kate, Location: Ireland

Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2007 4:20 pm
—
Isn't pulmonary TB contagious? Surely the TB patients shouldn't be attending the panto at any time, in that case! I know you need "prolonged contact", but even so... the doctors are so protective of the girls in other instances that it seems a little odd.

#16: Author: Sugar, Location: second star to the right!

Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2007 6:17 pm
—
I'm not sure it IS contagious in that way actually, my Grandmother had TB and as a young child I was never kept away from her. But there was concern when we got immunised at School, that I probably had natural immunity but they jabbed me anyway. Personally I think why shouldn't the patients have a bit of light relief to their days no ones likely to catch TB in an hour and a half!

#17: Author: Kate, Location: Ireland

Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2007 6:38 pm
—

Sugar wrote:

I'm not sure it IS contagious in that way actually, my Grandmother had TB and as a young child I was never kept away from her.

Just looked it up in my medical book and it says that certain forms are technically contagious, but you need to be spending loads of time with the person - i.e. many hours every day.

Sugar wrote:

Personally I think why shouldn't the patients have a bit of light relief to their days no ones likely to catch TB in an hour and a half!

I agree with you, definitely. It's just that it surprises me that the San doctors do! Smile

#18: Author: Tiffany, Location: Is this a duck I see behind me?

Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2007 8:55 pm
—
When Mrs Linton is diagnosed with TB, she's forbidden by the doctor to go to public assemblies, eg the cinema. I'd assumed that was so she didn't infect everyone, but it's not really made clear in the book.

#19: Author: Jennie, Location: Cambridgeshire

Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2007 9:06 pm
—
I think EBD had a horror of TB and so exaggerated it, so much so that she went too far. Or she seized on it, and made up her own ideas about the treatments and the care.

#20: Author: Lottie, Location: Humphrey's Corner

Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2007 9:12 pm
—

Tiffany wrote:

When Mrs Linton is diagnosed with TB, she's forbidden by the doctor to go to public assemblies, eg the cinema. I'd assumed that was so she didn't infect everyone, but it's not really made clear in the book.

I always assumed that it was the other way around; that the doctor didn't want Mrs. Linton to pick up any colds or coughs going around, because she wouldn't be strong enough to cope with them.

#21: Author: Mia, Location: London

Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2007 9:28 pm
—
There are quite a few different strains of TB and some are more virulent than others. I would think that the patients who went to the play were the ones who were there as 'a precaution'. I'm sure that if someone had fully-developed tuberculosis the last thing you would want to do is pop along and watch a performance of Aladdin! *g*

#22: Author: Mrs Redboots, Location: London, UK

Posted: Fri Jul 13, 2007 1:45 pm
—

Jennie wrote:

I think EBD had a horror of TB and so exaggerated it, so much so that she went too far. Or she seized on it, and made up her own ideas about the treatments and the care.

If she did have a horror of TB, she was right to do so - really, until the invention of the streptomycins in the mid-1950s , a diagnosis of pulmonary TB was pretty much a death sentence. There were things you could do to try to get better, but they were a bit random. There is a very funny book by an American author called Betty Macdonald (the author - the book is called The Plague and I), which gives a good description of TB treatments in the early 1950s, which is when the author had it.

Also, don't forget that some, at least, of the San patients would have had TB in places other than their lungs - you can have it almost anywhere, rather like cancer; I've known people with it in their spines and hips, and my father had a tubercular gland removed from his neck when he was a baby.

The "galloping consumption" that so many people (including Robins' mum) suffered from was probably pulmonary TB, although there's a case to be made that some of the Victorian young ladies actually had anorexia (in which case, of course, it would be lack of consumption that would have been the problem).

#23: Author: Róisín, Location: Ireland

Posted: Fri Jul 13, 2007 1:47 pm
—

Mrs Redboots wrote:

Also, don't forget that some, at least, of the San patients would have had TB in places other than their lungs - you can have it almost anywhere, rather like cancer; I've known people with it in their spines and hips, and my father had a tubercular gland removed from his neck when he was a baby.

Was it Leonard Redmond/fied that had the tubercular hip? Or was it Leila? Someone did anyway Confused

#24: Author: Mrs Redboots, Location: London, UK

Posted: Fri Jul 13, 2007 1:55 pm
—
Leila, I think. And didn't Peter Gardiner have it, too?

I seem to remember that when Jack joined Jem in Canada, it was to learn about new treatment for tubercular bones, so possibly that is what his particular speciality was.

#25: Author: MaryR, Location: Cheshire

Posted: Fri Jul 13, 2007 4:12 pm
—

Mrs Redboots wrote:

Also, don't forget that some, at least, of the San patients would have had TB in places other than their lungs - you can have it almost anywhere, rather like cancer.

You can indeed, Mrs Redboots. I developed it in the uterus, which made me unable to have children. How did I get itself there? The doctors concluded I got it in the chest as a cold and it transferred itself - and probably caught it in the slum clearnce area in which I was teaching, as we had a lot of Irish travellers used to come every summer. This was in the mid-1970s, when it was supposedly almost eradicated. I assume I caught it there as a young male teacher, who had taken over from me three years before, also developed TB. Scary, really.

#26: Author: Dreaming Marianne, Location: Second star to the right

Posted: Fri Jul 13, 2007 4:12 pm
—
Does anyone else remember library books having a sticker inside the front - something about notifying local health authority if borrowed by an infectious patron? Not sure what they'd do - bake them, maybe? And I remember this in the late 80s/early 90s (although to be fair, the books were probably a LOT older)

#27: Author: Pat, Location: Doncaster

Posted: Fri Jul 13, 2007 7:52 pm
—
I'd forgotten about those messages - often on the date labels I think. The books would probably have been burnt if contaminated like that.

#28: Author: Vashti,

Posted: Fri Jul 13, 2007 9:14 pm
—
I remember those from the mid-eighties! (when I used to go to the library every evening after school, and they had a wide range of Chalet paperbacks *swoons*). There was a big list of diseases, many of which I'd barely heard of.

And my mother made me notify the lady librarian when my sister had German measles "in case she's pregnant".

#29: Author: cara, Location: barnsley

Posted: Sat Jul 14, 2007 2:53 pm
—
My dad had pulmonary TB in 1974 and my brother (age 7) and me ( age 2) both had 12 months of antibiotic treatment including injections but my mum didn't need any treatment as the authoritites said she wasn't at risk due to her weight and previous good health Confused

although all of his brothers ans sisters were vaccinated. My dad ended up in a TB hospital called Wathwood for 23 months and it was there he took up smoking as prescribed by the doctors. We, my brother and I were not allowed to see him at all during his stay and my mum could only visit for 2x1 hours a week. After 23 months he was allowed back home and never looked back, my older brother and I never needed our BCG vaccine but my younger brother needed it.

#30: Author: Mona, Location: Hertfordshire

Posted: Sat Jul 14, 2007 4:25 pm
—

Quote:

it was there he took up smoking as prescribed by the doctors.

Really? That seems most bizarre. Has anyone any idea what the reasoning behind that was?

#31: Author: KB, Location: Melbourne, Australia

Posted: Sat Jul 14, 2007 10:40 pm
—
That's very interesting, cara. I always wondered, when I read the final Sue Barton book, about how realistic the visiting scenario actually way.

I'm also glad to hear that your father recovered so well from it.

#32: Author: Karry, Location: Stoke on Trent

Posted: Sun Jul 15, 2007 1:44 pm
—
My Dad, too, had pulminary TB, brought on as a result of nursing in the early 50's. He didnt go to a San but was treated at the hospital he worked in, ( a psychiatric asylum as it was in those days). He was diagnosed 3 years before i was born and was in there nearly two years. I had the BCG vaccine when I was 6 months old. My older sisters were done immediately.

#33: Author: Jennie, Location: Cambridgeshire

Posted: Sun Jul 15, 2007 2:34 pm
—
There was a lot of TB in the area where I lived, slap bang in the middle of the Nottinghamshire coalfields, so much so, that there was a sanatorium outside Mansfield. So may people went in there, that it seemed like an everyday occurence, and is one of the reasons that I am immune to TB.

#34: Author: Karry, Location: Stoke on Trent

Posted: Sun Jul 15, 2007 2:48 pm
—
Where abouts in the middle in Nottingham? Dad was nursing at Saxondale, we lived in Bingahm, before that at Creswell in North Derbyshire - former pit village!

#35: Author: Jennie, Location: Cambridgeshire

Posted: Sun Jul 15, 2007 3:24 pm
—
I was born in Mansfield, (in the Workhouse) lived in Forest Town until I was two and a half, then we moved to the great metropolis of Blidworth, then when I was thirteen we moved to Bilsthorpe.

#36: Author: Tara, Location: Malvern, Worcestershire

Posted: Sun Jul 15, 2007 10:58 pm
—

MaryR wrote:

This was in the mid-1970s, when it was supposedly almost eradicated. I assume I caught it there as a young male teacher, who had taken over from me three years before, also developed TB.

A girl in the first school I taught at (1970/71) had it, it wasn't diagnosed until she moved to another area, but everyone who'd taught her or been in class with her had to be X-rayed, we had the county mobile unit crawling all over the school. No ill effects as far as I know, but scary, indeed - and what a very sad outcome for you, Mary.

#37: Author: LizzieC, Location: Canterbury, UK

Posted: Thu Jul 19, 2007 8:47 pm
—

Mrs Redboots wrote:

There is a very funny book by an American author called Betty Macdonald (the author - the book is called The Plague and I), which gives a good description of TB treatments in the early 1950s, which is when the author had it.

I just wanted to thank you for this recommendation Mrs Redboots. After having a look at the amazon link I went and found it on ebay and it turned up yesterday. Started it this morning and have nearly finished - it's hard to put down.

Not only is it amusing but it gives a real insight to what was really happening in the San! No wonder Jack and Jem are so controlling at home!

If there's anyone else considering this book, go for it!

(Sorry if this is too far O/T. Just thought it was such a good book that Mrs Redboots deserved thanks Smile

)

#38: Author: Caroline, Location: Manchester

Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2007 8:38 am
—

Mona wrote:

Quote:

it was there he took up smoking as prescribed by the doctors.

Really? That seems most bizarre. Has anyone any idea what the reasoning behind that was?

No, but it's something I've heard of before. Maybe the docs thought the smoke would weaken or kill the bacteria lurking in the lungs?

The other thing about TB patients is how infectious they are - part of the role of the Sanatoria (other than the fresh air / good nutrition side) was to isolate the infected from the rest of the community, to reduce the likelihood that they would pass on their infection. Wasn't Mrs Linton told not to go to crowded places? Presumably this was a two-fold thing - so that she couldn't infect others and also to avoid her picking up another infection (a cold, the flu) that could have weakened her system further.

So, there's no way you would want a bunch of TB patients in a crowded room with other people - regardless of whether it was day or night time.

#39: Author: Mrs Redboots, Location: London, UK

Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2007 1:17 pm
—
[quote="LizzieC"]

Mrs Redboots wrote:

Giggle.... thanks. Glad you are enjoying it. I think maybe if <i>Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows</i> doesn't turn up in the post tomorrow and I run out of Dick Francis (who I'm currently having a bit of a re-read of), I'll have a re-read of it.

The CBB -> Anything Else

output generated using printer-friendly topic mod. All times are GMT

Page 1 of 1