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Post by Admin on Aug 22, 2020 13:41:41 GMT
The People - Sunday 27 September 1953
Interesting article from 1953.
Football pools, cinema and pubs help to keep the murder figures down by providing people with an escape from the monotony caused by mass production and loss of craftsmanship.
Dr Hugh Paul, Smethwick medical officer of health, made this statement yesterday at an Oxford conference on mental health when condeming people who tried to run other people's lives and put a stop to these amusements.
'I would suugest that they turn their minds instead to the problem of families living and sleeping in one or perhaps two rooms. If these people did not get away from the place they would quarrel all evening and there would be more murders'.
The factory worker was in danger of spiritual death, he said, unless he had something to replace the satisfaction he had lost in his work.
And dealing with children, he said girls used to swoon to escape from dominating parents. But the modern girl was incapable of swooning, what the father said was now treated with complacency and amusement.
His 'cure'
Sterilisation as a cure for problem families who ignore the duties of citizenship and neglect their children was advocated by Dr John Reid Graham, Chesterfield Rural Council, MoH, in his annual report.
Whilse, he said, he realised these families need help, they are a nuisance to their neighbours.
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Post by liferreilly on Aug 22, 2020 19:07:34 GMT
I thought that article was quite nostalgic! Even though it was written a couple of decades before i was around. "football pools, cinema and pubs help to keep the murder figures down" Football pools, usurped by the National Lottery. All the beautiful Art Deco cinemas- now kebab shops; places of worship; chain pubs or similar. Pubs - now only a fraction of them left, compared to when the article was written. Sadly, just reading through this site's archives, it's scary to see how many murders are committed in and around pubs and drinking alcohol.
"the modern girl was incapable of swooning" That bit made me laugh. Makes me think of old black and white crime films. There'd always be scene where a woman would scream into her handkerchief before fainting!
Sterilisation - i suppose the eugenicists have always been around. Wanting to give us their needles and vaccines etc...
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