On 08/07/2013 17:31, Charlie wrote: > On Sat, 06 Jul 2013 17:49:53 +0100, eve@varneys.org.uk wrote: > >> It just concerns me that so few actors and show biz people seem ever to >> have learnt any history. > > How very true. > >> Common sense would show that people generally didn't go into the >> workhouse unless their home conditions were really desperate, > > Also true. > >> generaqlly they were better fed, better housed, better cared for medically, >> and probably less exposed to physical and moral dangers than they would >> have been, or actually had been, outside. > > Sorry Eve, this is complete nonsense. Did you ever meet, speak to or know > any of those peeople who actually 'enjoyed the hospitality' of a workhouse? > I did, and their dread of ever having to return there has stayed in my > memory for many years. The utter fear of those institutions terrjfied those > who had not been interred in what were effectively prisons for the poor, > but who had relative who had suffered. Do you think it was fun for mothers > to be forcibly separated from their children, maybe never to see them > again? Likewise brothers and sisters, long time husbands and wives, all > forced into institutional uniforms, effectively prison clothes. All this > was just a bit of light rekief I suppose. Eve did not suggest the Workhouse was a holiday camp. She suggests that if they had not gone in, then they would have starved to death outside. Within the Workhouse, they were at least fed and had access to medical care, neither of which they had access to on the outside, unless they had money. Which they didn't. >> True, they lacked television, mod >> cons, designer clothes, and the liberty to misbehave, start a boy band and >> (save the mark) be a Selebritty - but most would have lacked these >> opportunites outside the workhouse too. > > What a ridiculous strawman argument! Quite inappropriate coming from > someone I've long regarded as a professional. To use the vernacular, a load > of old cobblers! Then you fail to understand the modern analogy. Nowadays, the "Workhouse Class" has free housing, food, utility bills, Nike trainers, 42" TVs, etc, and cannot help themselves from breeding more of the same which will make this nation's problems even worse in 20 - no - 15 years' time. The whole idea of the austerity and shame of the workhouse was to keep them out of there by their own endeavour. Some learnt their lesson. Others went in by sheer bad luck or health and made sure they never went in again. Yet others dispersed their genes until the problem is now out of control. > [more nonsense snipped] > . >> EVE >> >> >> Author of The McLaughlin Guides for Family Historians >> Secretary, Bucks Genealogical Society > > Oh dear! :-( >