Just Like The Ones We Used To Know, Chapter 13
Chapter 13 is up. This wound up at over 20,000 words. After dithering, I decided to post it in two pieces. I will post Part 2 on Christmas Day as it is set on Christmas Day. With Yuletide and all the other challenges, I figured this would get buried, but I hit the send anyway because now it’s time to turn to the Big Bang.
Thanks to adaese and wellinghall for their enormous assistance on foodstuffs and UK Christmas celebrations then and now. Also, there was a lot of information through google-fu, including here, here, Christmas Under Fire, and the Peoples’ War
There was also this report about a teenage girl who was “French” kissed by a dashing Frenchmen in black silk pyjamas,
Thanks also to lady_songsmith for Christmas information as well.
I found terrific information on the Christmas Eve Nine Lessons and Carols at King’s College, Cambridge in several places, including the College’s own site here and here and the very useful site here.
I once again returned to the work of the amazing anastigmatfic and refer back to her Deny the Child in which Morgan coshes Aslan with a candlestick. I thought a lot about Edmund in this part, for all that we don’t have his point of view much. We cover a lot of ground with him as we get the promised discussion of what it was to be a traitor from DT, some understanding with his mother, his reaction to and meeting Jill, his comfort to Lucy and hopefully a sense that he is not angst-filled and is moving in the right direction. My thanks to anastigmatfic,h_dash_h, and Doctor Dolly who all shared thoughts on this in comments.
Some of the period touches on important cultural milestones, including the release of Casablanca in December 1942 to coincide with Operation Torch, the influx of over paid, over sexed, over fed jitterbugging American GIs, and the release of White Christmas.
Here's a great video about Jitterbugging and such,
"Having learned the steps you now forget them." At about 5:32 you get all the American soldiers dancing and you can just imagine Mrs. Pevensie's reaction.
And then we come to lonely Helen, John the philanderer, the next door neighbor widow, Beatrice Goodwin and her relationship with Helen, and the Mass Observation project at the University of Sussex. Archives released in 2005 document the first-ever sex survey in Briton -- it was conducted in 1949. The survey came a year after the American Kinsey Report. The Sussex researchers differed from the Americans in that they interviewed women as well as men. Their report, called “the little Kinsey” report, was based on interviews and reporting of over 2,000 men and women and was intended for publication in a national newspaper. The survey results were so shocking, they were not released for over 50 years. Findings included:
I’ve been aware of this survey and its findings for a long time and have been building up to this reveal since the middle of TQSiT. I’ll develop this a little bit more in the next chapter. It is not, however, a big part of the story. It is a nod to the historical realities of the time and what the war did to families, relationships, and women especially. In this story, fortunately, the Pevensie not-children have grown up in a place that is very loving and accepting, have grown up to be very accepting, loving, and tolerant adults, and recognize that judgment belongs to Aslan alone. Granted, it's probably different when you realize it is your own parents about whom one must be tolerant and accepting. But we'll get there.
Peace to you and my deepest thanks.
Thanks to adaese and wellinghall for their enormous assistance on foodstuffs and UK Christmas celebrations then and now. Also, there was a lot of information through google-fu, including here, here, Christmas Under Fire, and the Peoples’ War
There was also this report about a teenage girl who was “French” kissed by a dashing Frenchmen in black silk pyjamas,
Thanks also to lady_songsmith for Christmas information as well.
I found terrific information on the Christmas Eve Nine Lessons and Carols at King’s College, Cambridge in several places, including the College’s own site here and here and the very useful site here.
I once again returned to the work of the amazing anastigmatfic and refer back to her Deny the Child in which Morgan coshes Aslan with a candlestick. I thought a lot about Edmund in this part, for all that we don’t have his point of view much. We cover a lot of ground with him as we get the promised discussion of what it was to be a traitor from DT, some understanding with his mother, his reaction to and meeting Jill, his comfort to Lucy and hopefully a sense that he is not angst-filled and is moving in the right direction. My thanks to anastigmatfic,h_dash_h, and Doctor Dolly who all shared thoughts on this in comments.
Some of the period touches on important cultural milestones, including the release of Casablanca in December 1942 to coincide with Operation Torch, the influx of over paid, over sexed, over fed jitterbugging American GIs, and the release of White Christmas.
Here's a great video about Jitterbugging and such,
Click to view"Having learned the steps you now forget them." At about 5:32 you get all the American soldiers dancing and you can just imagine Mrs. Pevensie's reaction.
And then we come to lonely Helen, John the philanderer, the next door neighbor widow, Beatrice Goodwin and her relationship with Helen, and the Mass Observation project at the University of Sussex. Archives released in 2005 document the first-ever sex survey in Briton -- it was conducted in 1949. The survey came a year after the American Kinsey Report. The Sussex researchers differed from the Americans in that they interviewed women as well as men. Their report, called “the little Kinsey” report, was based on interviews and reporting of over 2,000 men and women and was intended for publication in a national newspaper. The survey results were so shocking, they were not released for over 50 years. Findings included:
- One in five men and women reported a same sex experience;
- One in four men admitted to having sex with prostitutes;
- One in five women admitted to an extra-marital affair;
- One in three children were conceived outside of marriage
I’ve been aware of this survey and its findings for a long time and have been building up to this reveal since the middle of TQSiT. I’ll develop this a little bit more in the next chapter. It is not, however, a big part of the story. It is a nod to the historical realities of the time and what the war did to families, relationships, and women especially. In this story, fortunately, the Pevensie not-children have grown up in a place that is very loving and accepting, have grown up to be very accepting, loving, and tolerant adults, and recognize that judgment belongs to Aslan alone. Granted, it's probably different when you realize it is your own parents about whom one must be tolerant and accepting. But we'll get there.
Peace to you and my deepest thanks.