Dorothy Lawrence, war correspondent

[seaJane]

Don't laugh - I found this in The People's Friend...

No. 7999 (Oct 14, 2023), p.53.

Edited 26 October , 2023 by seaJane

[Dragon]

Given the readership demographic of the People's Friend*, this piece might prompt some interesting memories or anecdotes of wartime sent to the letters page in due course. 

Perhaps any of us in need of a tea caddy or shortbread** might submit our own 'Between Friends' letter! 

Gwyn

 

*31% 65 - 74, 45% 75+

** if published I think you get... but that may have changed since my grandma read People's Friend.

[Dust Jacket Collector]

and here she is :-

[Jim Strawbridge]

"Don't laugh - I found this in The People's Friend...".  I didn't laugh. An annual subscription to The People's Friend is my annual birthday present to Glynis and saves me having to put any imaginative thought into it.

[seaJane]

It's a very soothing publication for times when one needs soothing.

14 hours ago, Dragon said:

tea caddy or shortbread

Still the case!

[Dragon]

25 minutes ago, seaJane said:

It's a very soothing publication for times when one needs soothing.

 

Like Jim, I didn't laugh. It talks to a group of people, mainly women, who don't want to be upset by profanity, violence, sex, fear, or general unpleasantness but who want the comfort of reading about events they can picture featuring characters with whom they'd get on and perhaps some romance too. My grandma, for example. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. I haven't read it for some years (my grandma passed it on to my mum and it ended up in the doctor's surgery and if you're a patient browsing a magazine you don't want to read about people's deaths from terminal illness even if the fictional doctor is as handsome as Rupert Campbell Black).    

So the piece is positive and hopeful about Dorothy's bravery and self-differentiation, and her mental decline is simply referred to; if you're a reader who knows what an asylum was like, you know and if you don't know maybe you don't need to know. Nothing about the discomfort of the trenches and the realities of injury or death or even the rats. That's not the ethos of the People's Friend, and not a criticism. I don't like the one-sentence-per-paragraph style but doubtless the editorial team have their reasons.

I bet pieces like this can be used in memory days in retirement homes, and there'll be people who say, "My dad was in the trenches but he never talked about it" and there may, just may, be a remembered gem which adds to the body of anecdotal knowledge which would otherwise be lost.

Gwyn

(Confession. The PF once published a letter of mine written as a teen in response to something I read in my grandma's copy. I have no idea what, now, but it was probably sunny and hopeful and well, just nice. I don't remember any shortbread, though.)