Thursday, October 26, 2017

The Whisperers 1967







Plot[edit]

Mrs. Margaret Ross, an impoverished, elderly, eccentric woman, is living in a ground floor flat, in an unnamed town in North England. Aged 76, she is dependent on National Assistance from the British government. She is visited by her criminal son, who hides a package containing a large sum of money, in her unused spare room. The son confesses to the police of his robbery, then is sent to jail. Meanwhile, Mrs. Ross finds the money. Thinking the money is a windfall intended for her, Mrs. Ross makes elaborate plans. She casually confides to a stranger, who befriends her in order to ply her with spirits, kidnap her, then rob her of the stolen money. Rendered drunk and abandoned to the elements by her captors, Mrs. Ross contracts pneumonia. She is found by neighbors, then after almost dying, recovers in an hospital. It's the first time anyone has cared for her in years. Doctors, nurses, psychiatrists, and social workers all focus on her case. An agent at the National Assistance bureau traces down her husband, Archie (who deserted her decades ago). Motivated by the agent, who threatens him with legal pressure, informing him of his legal responsibility to her, the husband is strongly encouraged to move back in with her, which he does. Soon, he becomes involved with gamblers, then steals their money at a chance opportunity, which forces him to flee, so he deserts her again. Having been on the verge of a return to functional living, Mrs. Ross resumes her lonely status as an isolated person, who talks to the walls. This movie depicts these events as occurring during the year 1966, ironically the year that British National Assistance was abolished.




Eric Portman - Archie Ross

Edith Evans

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For 1912 Titanic fatality, see Edith Corse Evans.
Dame
Edith Evans
DBE
Dame Edith Evans Allan Warren.jpg
Dame Edith Evans in a 1973 portrait
BornEdith Mary Evans
8 February 1888
Pimlico, London, England
Died14 October 1976 (aged 88)
Kent, England
OccupationActress
Years active1910–1976
Spouse(s)George Booth (m. 1925–35)
Dame Edith Mary Evans, DBE (8 February 1888 - 14 October 1976) was an English actress. She was best known for her work on the stage, but also appeared in films at the beginning and towards the end of her career. Between 1964 and 1968, she was nominated for three Academy Awards.
Evans's stage career spanned sixty years during which she played more than 100 roles, in classics by Shakespeare, Congreve, Goldsmith, Sheridan and Wilde, and plays by contemporary writers including Bernard Shaw, Enid Bagnold, Christopher Fry and Noël Coward. She created roles in two of Shaw's plays: Orinthia in The Apple Cart (1929), and Epifania in The Millionairess(1940) and was in the British premières of two others: Heartbreak House (1921) and Back to Methuselah (1923).
Evans became widely known for portraying haughty aristocratic women, as in two of her most famous roles: Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest, and Miss Western in the 1963 film of Tom Jones. By contrast, she played a downtrodden maid in The Late Christopher Bean (1933), a deranged, impoverished old woman in The Whisperers (1967) and – one of her most celebrated roles – the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet, which she played in four productions between 1926 and 1961.

Life and career[edit]

For lists of Evans's roles see Edith Evans – stage and film roles

Early years[edit]

Evans was born in Pimlico, London, the daughter of Edward Evans, a junior civil servant in the General Post Office, and his wife, Caroline Ellen née Foster. She had one sibling, a brother who died at the age of four. She was educated at St Michael's Church of England School, Pimlico, before being apprenticed at the age of 15 in 1903 as a milliner. She commented in later years that she loved the rich and beautiful materials of the craft, but could not manage to make two hats alike.[1] While working in a milliner's shop in the City she began attending drama classes in Victoria; the classes developed into an amateur performing group, the Streatham Shakespeare Players, with whom she made her first stage appearance in October 1910, as Viola in Twelfth Night. In 1912, playing Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing, she was spotted by the producer William Poeland made her first professional appearance for him in Cambridge in August of that year; she played Gautami in a 6th-century Hindu classic, Sakuntalá, in a cast including the young Nigel Playfair.[2] Poel then cast her as Cressida in Troilus and Cressidain London and subsequently at Stratford-upon-Avon. The critic of The Manchester Guardian found her diction inadequate, but otherwise approved: "Miss Edith Evans, who, without quite the invincible charm for Cressida, gave an interesting performance".[3]
In The Laughing Lady, 1922
Evans's West End debut was in George Moore's Elizabeth Cooper in 1913.[n 1] The play received poor notices, but Evans was praised: "In the very small part of a maid Miss Edith Evans made the success of the afternoon. She put more into her few minutes than most of our approved 'stars' can suggest in leading parts."[4] In January 1914 she made her professional Shakespearian debut as Gertrude in Hamlet.[5]
In 1914, at Moore's instigation, Evans was given a year's contract by the Royalty Theatre in Soho.[6] She played character roles in comedies, as a junior member of casts that included Gladys Cooper and Lynn Fontanne.[5][7] Over the next ten years she polished her craft in a wide range of parts.[1] She played in a silent film called A Welsh Singer, directed by and featuring Henry Edwards in 1915.[n 2] For the same director she acted in East is East in 1917, but thereafter made no more films for over thirty years.[9] She toured in Shakespeare with Ellen Terry's company in 1918, appeared in light comedy alongside the young Noël Coward (Polly With a Past, 1921) and played five new Shavian roles, Lady Utterword in Heartbreak House (1921)[n 3]and the Serpent, the Oracle, the She-Ancient and the ghost of the Serpent in Back to Methuselah (1923).[11] In 1922 she made what J T Grein in The Illustrated London News called "a personal triumph" in Alfred Sutro's comedy The Laughing Lady.[12]

Stardom[edit]

For Evans's roles in this period see Edith Evans – roles from 1924
By this time Evans was well known to the critics, and frequently received excellent notices; with her performance as Millamant in The Way of the World in 1924 she achieved wide public fame for the first time.[13] Nigel Playfair cast her as the strong-willed and witty heroine in his revival of Congreve's Restoration comedy at the Lyric Hammersmith, in 1924. The critics resorted to superlatives:
[T]he main pleasure of the evening is due to Miss Edith Evans's Millamant, a part in which she definitely "arrives." This actress imposes herself upon the audience first of all by her Rubens-like vitality. We have always known that she can fill the stage. Physically she may have no more affinity with Congreve than a fiower-girl of Piccadilly Circus, but she has the art and the wit that transfigure the woman and give us the great lady, the coquette, the rogue, and the lover all in one. It was delicious to hear her demand to be "sole empress of her tea-table," but sublime to see her "dwindle into a wife."[14]
James Agate wrote, "Let me not mince matters. Miss Edith Evans is the most accomplished of living and practising English actresses."[15] Arnold Bennett noted in his journals that this Millamant was the finest comedy performance he had ever seen.[16] Her colleagues too were struck by the performance. John Gielgud recalled:
It was as Millamant ... that she took the town by storm. It was a unique and exquisite performance. She purred and challenged, mocked and melted, showing her changing moods by subtly shifting the angles of her head, neck and shoulders. Poised and cool, like a porcelain figure in a vitrine, she used her fan – which she never opened – in the great love scene, as an instrument for attack or defence, now coquettishly pointing it upwards beneath her chin, now resting it languidly against her cheek. Her words flowed on, phrasing and diction balanced in perfect cadences, as she smiled and pouted in delivering her delicious sallies.[17]
In the 1925–26 season, Evans joined the company of the Old Vic, playing Portia in The Merchant of Venice, Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra, Katherina in The Taming of the Shrew, Rosalind in As You Like It, Mistress Page in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Beatrice in Much Ado and the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet – one of her most celebrated roles.[13][n 4] The schedule of rehearsals and performances was hectic. She recalled, "It was altogether a momentous season for me. I lost 17lb in weight and on the only free day from rehearsal ran off and got married."[13] Her husband was George (Guy) Booth (1882 or 1883–1935), an engineer whom she had known for more than twenty years; there were no children.[6] Marriage to someone unconnected with the theatre suited Evans, who did not share the taste of many of her colleagues for what Gielgud called "publicity, gossip and backstage intrigue".[19]
Looking back in 1976 at Evans's career The Times observed that the two decades after her success as Millamant showed the range of her talent. The paper counted among her "performances of absolute assurance" in this period those in Tiger Cats(1924), The Beaux' Stratagem (1927), The Lady with a Lamp (1929), and The Apple Cart (1929) in which she played Orinthia, the king's mistress, a role written for her by Shaw.[1][n 5] During the 1930s she played in several Broadway seasons, some productions transferred from London and others new.[5] While she was in New York playing the Nurse opposite the Juliet of Katharine Cornell her husband died suddenly in London. She returned, devastated, and encouraged by colleagues found solace by throwing herself into her work.[19]
Evans's notable roles of the 1930s included Irela in Evensong (1932), Gwenny in The Late Christopher Bean (1933), four Shakespeare parts, and in 1939 Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest.[1] She played the last of these on and off for seven years, on tour and in London, and by 1947, when a Broadway run was offered, she declined to act in the piece again.[19] She played Lady Bracknell on film (1952) and television (1960) but never again on the stage.[5]
During the Second World War Evans joined an ENSA company travelling to Gibraltar to entertain Allied troops.[21] The following year she played in a West End revival of Heartbreak House, this time playing Hesione Hushabye.[22] She toured for ENSA in Britain, Europe and India in 1944 and 1945. Returning to London, at the end of the war she played Mrs Malaprop in The Rivals. The production was not liked by the critics, and Evans's performance drew respectful rather than ecstatic reviews.[23]

Postwar[edit]

For Evans's stage and film roles in this period see Edith Evans – postwar stage roles and Edith Evans – film roles
Evans played Shakespeare's Cleopatra for the last time in 1946–47, in her late fifties. Her performance divided the critics: opinions varied from "an agonising disaster"[24] to "a joy to watch".[25] Kenneth Tynan said, "Lady Bracknell has been involved in a low Alexandrian scandal".[13] Evans had never been classically good looking, but she was a great enough actress to "convey beauty without being conventionally beautiful".[13] What troubled many, including Agate and Gielgud, about her Cleopatra and other tragic heroines was not her appearance but a sense that tragedy came less naturally to her than comedy.[19] Some of the great Shakespearian tragic roles she constantly refused to play, notably Lady Macbeth. She told Gielgud, "I could never impersonate a woman who had such a peculiar notion of hospitality",[26] which he took to mean that she could not contemplate the character's "explicit admission of evil".[19] Evans once remarked, "I don't think there is anything extraordinary about me except this passion for the truth",[6] a passion revered by Gielgud and others, but one that prevented her from attempting a character whose essence she could not understand.[19] She said to Shaw that she had been asked to play Volumnia in Coriolanus, but "isn't she a bloodthirsty old harridan? I could never play her."[13][n 6] This did not mean that she had to like the characters she played, but she had to understand them. When she first read through the role of Lady Bracknell with Gielgud she commented, "I know those sort of women. They ring the bell and tell you to put a lump of coal on the fire."[17]
Blue plaque at Evans's home
In 1948 Evans returned to the film studios after an absence of more than thirty years. At the instigation of Emlyn Williams she appeared in The Last Days of Dolwyn.[6] The cast included Williams, Richard Burton, in his first film,[27] and Allan Aynesworth, who had created the role of Algernon in The Importance of Being Earnest in 1895. This was Aynesworth's last film; Evans went on to make eighteen more over the next three decades. She played an elderly Welsh woman,[n 7] and was well received by reviewers, although one wondered if she was yet quite at home before the camera: "there are indeed moments when she looks as disproportionate as a life-size Rembrandt in a one-room flatlet. But it is not, of course, the flatlet which stays in the memory".[28] In the same year she played Countess Ranevskaya in Thorold Dickinson's film version of The Queen of Spades.[9][n 8]
In the theatre, Evans returned to The Way of the World in 1948, exchanging the role of Millamant for that of the formidable old Lady Wishfort. The production received mixed notices, and Evans's Wishfort – "like a preposterous caricature of Queen Elizabeth"[30] – though much admired, overshadowed the rest of the cast.[31] In November of the same year she made one of her rare appearances in Chekhov, as Ranevskaya in The Cherry Orchard. Her performance divided opinion: in The ObserverIvor Brown wrote of "the glorious impact of an authentic genius at the highest level of world-theatre",[32] but the anonymous reviewer in The Times thought that she "remains, a little mysteriously, outside of the character".[33]
Over the next ten years Evans played in only six stage productions because she appeared in long-running West End plays. From March 1949 to November 1950 she appeared as Lady Pitts in Daphne Laureola in London and then New York. At the Haymarket she played Helen Lancaster in Waters of the Moon, which ran for more than two years. In April 1954 she played Countess Rosmarin Ostenburg in The Dark Is Light Enough, and at the Haymarket she was Mrs St Maugham in The Chalk Garden from April 1956 to November 1957.[5] In May 1958 she returned to the Old Vic company, playing Queen Katharine in Henry VIII in London and then at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon. At the same theatre in the 1959 season she played the Countess of Rousillon in All's Well That Ends Well, and, despite her earlier words to Shaw, Volumnia in Coriolanus.[5] In the 1950s she made three films, The Importance of Being Earnest (1952), Look Back in Anger (1959) and The Nun's Story (1959).[5]

1960s and 1970s[edit]

In 1960 Evans played Judith Bliss in a television production of Noël Coward's Hay Fever.[34] In the 1961 Stratford season Evans played Queen Margaret in Richard III and appeared for the last time as the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet. At the Queen's Theatre in November 1963, she played Violet in Gentle Jack by Robert Bolt.[n 9] In 1964 in a production for the National Theatre, she returned to the role of Judith Bliss in Hay Fever, heading a cast that in Coward's words "could play the Albanian telephone directory".[36] Her films from the first half of the 1960s were Tom Jones (1963), The Chalk Garden and Young Cassidy (both made in 1964).[5] Her biggest film part of the 1960s was the central character, Mrs Ross, in The Whisperers(1967) for which she received an Oscar nomination and five major awards.[n 10] After that her screen appearances were in supporting roles in ten more films. When she was 87 she played the Dowager Queen in The Slipper and the Rose (1975) in which she sang and danced.[6]
Evans's last stage roles were Mrs Forrest in The Chinese Prime Minister at the Globe (1965), the Narrator in The Black Girl in Search of God at the Mermaid (1968), and Carlotta in Dear Antoine, Chichester Festival (1971). After she found learning new roles too much, she presented an anthology of prose, poetry and music under the title Edith Evans and Friends, both in the West End and elsewhere.[22] In this show she made her final performance on the West End stage, on 5 October 1974.[6] Her last public appearance was a BBC radio programme With Great Pleasure, a selection of her favourite works, given before an invited audience in August 1976. In The Guardian, Nicholas de Jongh wrote of her evident frailty, "Yet she can still give the single words and phrases an imperious or serene grandeur, as in her final speaking of Richard Church's poem where she welcomed 'that summoning touch of death our neighbour'. What a glorious star is going out."[37]
Bryan Forbes, who had directed Edith Evans in The Whisperers and The Slipper and the Rose, wrote her biography Ned's Girl, first published in 1977
Evans died at her home in Kilndown, Kent, on 14 October 1976 at the age of 88.[6]

Honours and memorials[edit]

Evans was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 1946. She received honorary degrees from the universities of London (1950), Cambridge (1951), Oxford (1954) and Hull (1968).[22]
Evans was painted by Walter Sickert as Katharina in Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. For many years a sculpted head of Evans was on display at the Royal Court Theatre. In 1977 a portrait by Henry Glintenkamp [38] was sold as part of her estate.
Evans's ashes are interred at St Paul's, Covent Garden, London.[39] A blue plaque was unveiled outside her house at 109 Ebury Street, London, in 1997.[40]

Academy Awards[edit]

Edith Evans was nominated three times for an Academy Award between 1964 and 1968.[41]
YearAwardTitle of workResult
1964Best Supporting ActressTom JonesNominated
1965Best Supporting ActressThe Chalk GardenNominated
1968Best ActressThe WhisperersNominated

Other film acting awards[edit]

Edith Evans was cited as Best Supporting Actress by the National Board of Review (NBR) for The Nun's Story in 1959. The NBR also cited her as Best Supporting Actress for The Chalk Garden in 1964 and as Best Actress for The Whisperers in 1967. Her role in The Whisperers also won her awards from the British Film Academy, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, and the New York Film Critics Circle.[41]

See also[edit]

Notes and references[edit]

Notes
  1. Jump up^ Moore had intended to cast Evans in the leading role, but was overruled by the theatre management. Instead she played the supporting role of Martin, a maid.[1]
  2. Jump up^ According to one source (not recognised as a reliable source by Wikipedia, the Internet Movie Database), Evans appeared in another 1915 film, Honeymoon for Three, starring Charles Hawtrey. This cannot be verified on the British Film Institute's database.[8]
  3. Jump up^ Evans did not create the role: the play had been given in New York, Vienna and Stockholm before its London production.[10]
  4. Jump up^ In The Daily Telegraph W A Darlington called Evans's Nurse "as earthy as a potato, as slow as a cart-horse, and as cunning as a badger".[18]
  5. Jump up^ The character was partly modelled on Shaw's leading lady of an earlier generation, Mrs Patrick Campbell. She encountered Evans before the premiere of the play, and was not pleased to learn that the younger actress was to some extent impersonating her.[20] Evans later admitted, "I don't like Orinthia very much."[13]
  6. Jump up^ Evans eventually undertook the role in 1958 to the Coriolanus of Laurence Olivier.[5]
  7. Jump up^ Despite her typically Welsh surname, and her roles in her first silent film and first talkie, Evans had no Welsh blood.[1]
  8. Jump up^ Authorities differ on which of Evans's 1948 films was made first; The Queen of Spades was released first, in March 1949, with The Last Days of Dolwyn following in April.[28][29]
  9. Jump up^ The title role was played by Kenneth Williams, according to whom Evans expressed reservations about his casting. He liked to mimic her characteristic swooping tones protesting, "He has such an extraordinary voice."[35]
  10. Jump up^ See Edith Evans – stage and film roles#Filmography for the list of her film awards and nominations.
References
  1. ^ Jump up to:a b c d e f "Dame Edith Evans – An actress of genius and dedication", 15 October 1976, p. 15
  2. Jump up^ "Sakuntala at Cambridge", The Manchester Guardian, 2 August 1912, p. 11
  3. Jump up^ "Mr. Joel's Production of Troilus And Cressida", The Manchester Guardian , 11 December 1912, p. 6
  4. Jump up^ "Mr George Moore's New Play", The Manchester Guardian, 25 June 1913, p. 10
  5. ^ Jump up to:a b c d e f g h i Gaye, pp. 579–581
  6. ^ Jump up to:a b c d e f g Forbes, Bryan. "Evans, Dame Edith Mary (1888–1976)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edition, January 2011, accessed 1 August 2013 (subscription or UK public library membership required)
  7. Jump up^ "Mr. Knoblauch's New Play: My Lady's Dress at The Royalty", The Manchester Guardian, 22 April 1914, p. 5 and "My Lady's Dress", The Observer, 26 April 1914, p. 9
  8. Jump up^ "Honeymoon for Three", British Film Institute, accessed 6 August 2013
  9. ^ Jump up to:a b "Edith Evans filmography", British Film Institute, accessed 5 August 2013
  10. Jump up^ "Mr. Shaw on Heartbreak House", The Observer, 16 October 1921, p. 9
  11. Jump up^ "Back to Methuselah!", Birmingham Repertory Theatre programme, October 1923
  12. Jump up^ Grein, J T. "The World of the Theatre", The Illustrated London News, 2 December 1922, p. 906
  13. ^ Jump up to:a b c d e f g Billington, Michael. "Dame Edith Evans: 'The greatest actress of her times' died yesterday, aged 88", The Guardian, 15 October 1976, p. 17
  14. Jump up^ "Congreve at Hammersmith", The Manchester Guardian, 8 February 1924, p. 12
  15. Jump up^ Agate (1925), p. 83
  16. Jump up^ Bennett, p. 764
  17. ^ Jump up to:a b Gielgud, p. 72
  18. Jump up^ Quoted in Agate (1976), p. 36
  19. ^ Jump up to:a b c d e f Gielgud, John. "A very honest actress", The Observer, 17 October 1976, p. 15
  20. Jump up^ Holroyd, pp. 469–470
  21. Jump up^ Gielgud, p. 137
  22. ^ Jump up to:a b c "Evans, Dame Edith (Dame Edith Mary Booth)", Who Was Who, online edition, Oxford University Press, December 2012, accessed 5 August 2013 (subscription required)
  23. Jump up^ "Criterion Theatre", The Times, 26 September 1945, p. 6; and Brown, Ivor. "Theatre and life", The Observer, 30 September 1945, p. 2
  24. Jump up^ Hart-Davis, p. 12
  25. Jump up^ "Piccadilly Theatre", The Times, 21 December 1946, p. 6
  26. Jump up^ Croall, p. 292
  27. Jump up^ "Richard Burton", British Film Institute, accessed 6 August 2013
  28. ^ Jump up to:a b "New Films in London", The Manchester Guardian, 23 April 1949, p. 3
  29. Jump up^ "Warner Cinema", The Times, 18 March 1949, p. 6
  30. Jump up^ "New Theatre", The Times, 22 October 1948, p. 7
  31. Jump up^ Brown, Ivor. "Plots And Finery", The Observer, 24 October 1948, p. 2
  32. Jump up^ Brown, Ivor. "Assorted Fruits", 28 November 1948, p. 2
  33. Jump up^ "New Theatre", The Times, 26 November 1948, p. 2
  34. Jump up^ Crozier, Mary. "Television", The Guardian, 25 May 1960, p. 7
  35. Jump up^ Osborne, p. 305 and Gibbons, p. 80
  36. Jump up^ Coward, p. xiv
  37. Jump up^ De Jongh, Nicholas. "Edith Evans", The Guardian, 16 August 1976, p. 8
  38. Jump up^ National Portrait Gallery collection
  39. Jump up^ Memorial Service: Dame Edith Evans", The Times, 10 December 1976, p. 19
  40. Jump up^ "Evans, Dame Edith (1888–1976)", English Heritage, accessed 5 August 2013.
  41. ^ Jump up to:a b "Edith Evans Awards". Internet Movie Database. Retrieved 25 January 2014.

Sources[edit]

  • Agate, James (1925). The Contemporary Theatre, 1924. London: Chapman & Hall. OCLC 7980480.
  • Agate, James; Tim Beaumont (1976). Beaumont, ed. The Selective Ego. London: Harrap. ISBN 0245528490.
  • Bennett, Arnold (1933). The Journal of Arnold Bennett. New York: Literary Guild. OCLC 363005.
  • Coward, Noël (1979). Plays: Volume One: The Mid-twenties. London: Methuen. ISBN 0413460509.
  • Croall, Jonathan (2011). John Gielgud – Matinee Idol to Movie Star. London: Methuen. ISBN 1408131064.
  • Gaye, Freda (ed) (1967). Who's Who in the Theatre (fourteenth ed.). London: Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons. OCLC 5997224.
  • Gibbons, Brian (2011). ""He shifteth his speech": accents and dialects in plays by Shakespeare and his contemporaries". In Christa Jansohn, Lena Cowen Orlin and Stanley Wells (eds). Shakespeare Without Boundaries. Newark, NJ: University of Delaware Press. ISBN 0874130956.
  • Gielgud, John; John Miller; John Powell (1979). An Actor and His Time. London: Sidgwick and Jackson. ISBN 0283985739.
  • Hart-Davis, Rupert; George Lyttelton (1987) [1983 and 1984]. Lyttelton/Hart-Davis Letters Vol 5 (1960 letters) and Vol 6 (1961–62 letters). London: John Murray. ISBN 0719543819.
  • Holroyd, Michael (1997). Bernard Shaw. London: Chatto and Windus. ISBN 0701162791.
  • Osborne, Charles (1986). Giving It Away. London: Secker & Warburg. ISBN 0436354012.

External links[edit]

Filmography[edit]





Robert O'Connor
It breaks my heart the way society is going. I honestly can't stand it. I 'escape' from it by watching films like this. I have them all on DVD, all of the late Sir Bryan Forbes' films and many more. I especially like Seance on a Wet Afternoon, although it wasn't Sir Bryan's favourite, he had a soft spot for it. Whistle down the Wind was one of his favourites. I adore these old films. I simply can't get enough of them.



I hadn't seen this film in years. It really shows what the time was like for some people. People are nostalgic about the 60's and how great they were but this shows a harsh reality that the 'Summer of love' was just for a few. The way that the family robbed her and dumped her in the street shows that things haven't changed that much socially. The welfare state helped a lot of people and gave them pensions and unemployment benefit but the way things are now with people having to go to Food banks(mostly run by churches) because they can't get unemployment benefit or housing makes it appear we are going backwards. At least there were jobs around then and British industry was doing great exporting cars and steel, even coal amongst other things, not to forget the wonderful British Film industry. We have no British industry anymore. Nowadays we can't even have a spare bedroom in our own homes without having to pay tax for it.



Superbly acted, dismally sad, hauntingly depressing, and emotionally exhausting - I couldn't look away!


bella angel
This elderly woman is a lovely, lonely & gentle soul in need of kindness, understanding & friendship. There are so many around us like her if we have but eyes to see:-)




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