Advice: Ancient and Modern - Sarah Nicholson
What did we do before that Chap NGT (Not Got Talent*) entered the room and answered our every question?
I suppose there was Google… just how many times do we say…
“Let’s Google that!”
It’s common parlance, usually when watching something on TV.
“What’s he been in?”
“How old is Joan Collins now?”
No body knows, or you are on your own, and Google becomes
your best friend with every answer at your fingertips!
Oh, how I pity the people of yesteryear before the internet
was even thought of. Then again, maybe they didn’t need the answer to the
question
“Was he
in an episode of Casualty? The one with the train crash.”**
In the good old day you would reach for a trusted book.
Printed matter cannot be questioned, it can be relied upon to provide good
advice. Especially when said tome is called Everybody’s Best Friend.
Edited by Harold Wheeler Hon.D,Litt, F.R.Hist.S (The man has so many letters after his name he must be wise and learned)
Published in… hmmm, there is no definitive date but reading
through some of the answers, this book was dispensing advice approximately a
century ago, at least some time between WW1 and WW2.
It was a find in a charity shop several years ago and even
if the words are dated, potentially irrelevant in our modern world, they do
serve as a fascinating insight into recent social history.
This particular copy is inscribed
To my
darling David,
on the occasion of our marriage
June 11th 1994
All my love forever
Sadie (Julie, Jodie????)
She added the postscript
If you
ever need to use this book I’ll be bloody surprised!
I find it quite sad that such a thoughtful gift ended up
being given away. Maybe David SHOULD have consulted the chapter on “Difficult”
Wives.
There is advice on dealing with an Ivy Plant Wife (one who
is too clingy), a wife who is temperamental, mad on dancing or even an amiable
ignoramus!
“In the last analysis, of
course, there is no cure for complete disparity of tastes. Affection and mutual
tolerance will together supply the only safe bridge across that gulf.”
As the saying goes “it takes two to tango” and it must be duly
noted that BEFORE the chapter on “Difficult” Wives is a chapter on “Difficult”
Husbands. Be he masterful, lazy, a gambler or a man who “chances his arm” in
business there are some words of wisdom on the subject.
“The wise wife will always
give him a little rope and yet see that it is never long enough to bring about
their economic hanging.”
Perhaps I am picking and choosing my answers but then
doesn’t everyone? Advice is not always heeded, whether from the internet, a
helpful friend, or a book.
There is plenty more to be said – but I might get a couple
more blog post out of this and so I will leave you with another more random
quote from the chapter on Everything about the Home.
My wife is keen to have a
telephone … Do you think the expense would be justified?
In all cases where the expense
can be met and particularly where most of one’s friends have telephones, to be
“on the phone” is an advantage.
Which causes me to wonder if times have really changed that
much after all?
*I can NEVER remember the proper letters and don’t intend to
learn them!
** I don’t actually watch Casualty, but there must have been
at least one episode over the years with a train crash in.
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