When I was just two I had my tonsils out in hospital, I had to stay in overnight and was put on a ward with other children, I could not talk but I had a pretty good understanding of language, I remember I found words difficult to reproduce (something I have no problem with now, or for some time) but I could understand on a high level every word every one was saying, when the nurses were there the other kids on my ward would say “come on Georgie, we will look after you,” but when the nurses left they would swear in the worst way at me, if I tried to talk they would tell me to fuck off. when I was older, I had them all shot (in my imagination.) kids are more conscious than we really know, I come from an era where children were thought not to even gain consciousness or have any idea of spacial awareness until we were 6 months old and that was in the 60s.
when I was five I overheard my father on the phone one evening, I was in the bath and he was in the dining room, he was looking after me, I didn’t spend a lot of alone with Dad time when I was young, “well who’s to know I am tickling your fancy” he was saying, even at that innocent age I knew and understood what he was talking about, I got out of the bath to listen some more, he said the same thing again to the other person on the other end of our new “trim” phone, I crept back into the bath but was very aware of the wet footprints I may have left in the hall way,I was a bit scared that he knew I had overheard him and although he did sense something and was being super dad nice to me it frightened me more, I wanted my friend stephen to come over, I got very insistent as I realised that he was being too nice and felt he was going to kill me, I am telling you this because I can remember childhood emotions so vividly, there is nothing you can do if your child is frightened of you for something you have done wrong, your child becomes deaf to your words and only lip serves you, there is a whole other world going on inside them, the nicer and more caring my father became, the more i wanted someone else in the house with me, I became hysterical and my father had to drive me to stephens house with me in the end. I have always wondered what would have happened if he had just told me the truth or even made a story up about the telephone conversation that he knew I had overheard.
The image above is very upsetting for me, the spellings are incorrect, how did this happen, where is the attention to detail, who passed that product, how many signed it off. I wonder if nowadays we gain consciousness at all
The Roaring Forties 