What did you think of Episode 2, Milly?
Brilliantly performed, but oh so sad. It just shows how bleak existence was in those days. No proper sanitation, no running water, no hot water to hand. Children died of croup and measles. Croup was a strange one - we rarely hear of it these days, but in those days you either got over it or you didn't. The medical profession was positively barbaric and, as they said in the first episode, they often played safe by amputating a limb rather than risk infection by trying to save it. Operations by candlelight. It's a wonder anyone survived to adulthood. Childbirth was a very risky process. It still is, I suppose, but the child mortality rate then was appalling. The setting for this book is supposed to be Knutsford, but it reminds me more (in the book itself) of a place called Cheadle where I spent some time when my husband was ill. I noticed in the churchyard there the graves of all the children. One poor woman had lost five babies under the age of a year. Literally one a year according to the dates.
Elizabeth Gaskell besides being an excellent writer, has provided us with an interesting historical view. How lucky we are these days! The only thing I mourn the passing of is the beautiful English grammar and their ordinary conversational vocabulary.
I loved it when Eileen Atkin was handed the gift of the wooden coal shovel, her face lit up with pleasure. she positively beamed and remarked "This is highly individual!" When she was obviously dying later on of what looked like a stroke, as she was going upstairs she said "I have a headache of phenomenal proportion!" Can you imagine saying that to your GP these days? I'm so looking forward to the next episode.
Of Elizabeth Gaskell's books, I have North and South, Cousin Phyllis, Cranford and Mary Barton, but I haven't read her biography of Charlotte Bronte. I must put it on my wish-list.
What did you think of it Mary?
