They say everyone has a book inside them and I guess it could be true; it may not be a stunning novel of Shakespearean style vintage, it is more likely events they can relate to in their previous lives, however, all authors, in my opinion, whilst writing an interesting, fictional and exciting story, have a responsibility to treat history with honesty and respect.
Just recently I started reading a book, the story of which was of the fictional events of a family living in the Second World War … as I am past three score years and ten it is a time of life which I can relate to.
Each chapter starts with the date and the one I am referring to is headed April 1944 … ‘the phone rang and she answered it, and it was Dad’ … oh no she didn’t, in that period telephones did not exist in people’s houses. There were red phone boxes (kiosks), but they were few and far between, on the side of some streets, with a coin box to put money in if you wanted to make a call: it was not until the mid-fifties that we had a personal unit at home, and then it was on a shared line.
Same story, and It is still the same month, and the young member of the family … ‘sergeant boyfriend is given a week’s leave to be with her’ … oh no he didn’t and couldn’t. In that period all leave was cancelled by the Armed forces as the allies prepared in Southern England for the largest invasion ever mounted, to attack Hitlers France, which took place in June of that year.
In the book there was a lot more in the same premise, the author was writing a story and using today’s events and way of living as if they existed in that period of time.
Do these mishaps and lack of investigating story line spoil the story, perhaps and perhaps not, and it only destroys the quality of the story telling if one is aware of true events.
Images in films can also spoil the tale and the events that are being portrayed. In a recent Catherine Cookson DVD the details were depicted to take place in the early nineteen hundreds when motorcars were very basic, the producers probably had difficulty in matching a car of the period, but using a much later green car of a nineteen thirties model spoiled the scene.
Nearly a quarter of the way through this century and we enter the New Year with the East and the West of the World still not having resolved their differences. Putin is still in power after almost thirty years, whilst in the United Kingdom some politicians cannot tell the difference between men and women, and various governments have also allowed people who are absorbed in changing the country’s English language into some form of woke version, for what reason I do not fully understand.
Now as I write this, we learn in the news today that Joe Biden was never the President of the United States, he was in name only as he was in poor health and not capable.
In my opinion it seems to me that the behaviour of our leaders in the World is like a poorly written book, fictional and unbelievable.
Please do not let me put you off your reading. After all most books are only fabrications, enjoy every page to the end – when it is good, sigh, whilst wishing it was longer. Take care.
