General Chat

I had a collection of old medical books - mainly the 'Home Encyclopaedia' type - and the information in them was mind-blowing for it's inaccuracy!!
The best one was an American 'Medical Dictionary' from 1870,that had chapters on 'menses', and how this affected women - both physically and mentally - and from what I read, I'm amazed we women survived.
There was also a fascinating chapter on 'spermatorrhea', it's causes, and how to stop it!

My daughter, who works for the NHS now has these books, and occasionally shows new recruits the implements used now, that were also used in the 1870's - the speculum being one of them.
I mean, if we're going to get really fussy, perhaps we should insist medical implements are updated :-D :-D

Personally, I also didn't like Dr Spock's ideas.

To my mind, there is a real danger in changing the wording in established books, and banning others - some US states have banned certain 'Dr Seuss' books.

I don't remember it, but have read that the Nazis did something similar, in 1933 - well, they just burned the books..
Will they now ban books that mention this fact, in case a comparison is made?

Oh yes, and I think I still have my copy of 'Fanny Hill' - unless my daughter forgot to return it :-D

Sorry - I should have said "Them Chatterley's Lover".

While I was still at school in the 6th Form, we discovered that there was a copy of the Decameron on a shelf in one of the alcoves.

Guess what occupied a lot of our "free library periods" :-D

I'd never heard of Hank Janson either!!

Golly, and I thought Sergeanne Golon's book covers were titillating!!

But it reminded me that back in 1959, I had just started at university and my brother said he would buy any text books that I needed as we knew my parents couldn't help financially. I was on full scholarship from the local Education Board, but books could be expensive.

So he came to our house one evening, and Mum overheard us talking about books, asked what it was about ........... and brother told her he was thinking of buying "Lolita", which had only recently been published.

Mum grinned and said she'd like to read it when we got it :-D

I'm another who'd never heard of Hank Janson.
I've just looked him up.
Goodness, the covers of his books don't leave much to the imagination!

I have never heard of Hank Janson either!

However, a girl at school had a copy of Fanny Hill. It was so well-thumbed it automatically fell open at the 'naughty' bits. :-D :-D

Having led such a sheltered life I had never heard of Hank Janson but now wonder why just covering a copy of Payton Place was enough to hide it from my Mum.

She probably read it whilst I was at school.

Ha! ha! We did that with Lady Chatterley's Lover in the early 1960s.

One girl had got hold of a paperback copy. She divided it into sections, and passed them around the school.
None of us received the bits in the right order, so had a very hazy idea of the plot.
We weren't interested in the plot, in any case - just the "juicy" bits.

Lol Maggie I remember a Hank jansen book circulating round my class at school where all the girls read it in turn I must have been about 14. I had forgotten that until I read your post.

How will todays youth manage in the future when nothing is allowed to scare them or upset them? No we shouldn't go out of our way to hurt/upset/scare etc but it is what it is these books were written that way if they really are wrong eg saying coloured people are not as good as white people then obviously a disclaimer can be added. How is changing books today so unlike the Germans burning books in the past because it doesn't fit their agenda? Pulling a statue down doesn't change what someone may have done in part of their life, was Churchill a pure person all his life probably not many of us aren't if looked at through a magnifying glass, but at a time in history he was the man who did what needed to be done and helped saved the West.
Now it seems we need to save the young from themselves.

I also disagree with the recent spate of knee-jerk removal of statues and other memorials to people whose wealth was connected to slavery.

Those memorials were not erected to glorify slavery, but were in gratitude for the good works done by those people, and the huge amounts of money they gave to build libraries/hospitals/ schools, etc, etc.

The good works are still praise-worthy, even if the source of the money is now discredited.



A plaque at the entrance to a public building near here used to state that it had been built with the help of funds from certain bodies, and had been opened on such-and-such a date by Jimmy Savile.
It wasn't glorifying him - merely stating the fact that he had opened it.

When his mis-deeds came to light many years later, the bottom part of the plaque was sliced off in order to remove his name.
While I appreciate that merely seeing his name on a plaque might upset some people, to me that has always felt like air-brushing history. Removing his name doesn't change the fact that he did open the building.

We cannot change history in any form, but we can learn from history so where mistakes have been made, we can learn from them.

I have many Enid Blytons books from the early 1960's and loved them as a child. Some have said they were racist but I read them and thought they were great, so would I change them?...er no. That was then and now is now.

Maggie, re the menopause, it's been around since women existed. Yes they are now better meds etc to assist women but none of my friends(all in our 60's) needed any help. we just gone on with it When I was teenager, during "that" week, my mother wouldnt let me wash my hair , ride a bike etc..was madness and my nanna said women who were menstruating could turn food bad!!

But re changing written stories etc, just leave them be. It serves no purpose to re-write them otherwise, how would todays children know what the earlier decades were like?

Florence in the hebrides

I agree, Sylvia. Why change what was written in the past - they show the attitudes o!f the time.
It's not as if humanity is 'perfect' now.

For example, it seems the menopause has just been acknowledged.
We know this, as now we have special face creams for the menopausal woman, and it was given as a possible reason for the disappearance of Nicola Bulley.

That's like going back to the time when women who were menstruating were considered 'hysteric', and 'incapable'.

Back in the 1990s, I was "the" editor for the Botanical Garden where I worked.

We ran out of guides to the Japanese Garden, and chump here had to revise and produce a new one.

We also had a local lawyer very involved in the garden who thought he was the real "big wig", not helped by the Receptionist/Director's Secretary who almost bowed before him when he visited, usually at least once a month or every 2 weeks.

At that point, Canadians were looking at revising how we referred to the First Nations, and learning that Indian, Eskimo, etc were NOT the words to use in conversations or writing at that time. But it was all in the early stages.

The original pamphlet contained a quote from a book originally published around 1890, and contained the word "Indian".

The quote was important, and I really looked at it, checked with everyone I could, and the consensus was that it should NOT be changed, as it was a direct quote.

So our old lawyer is sent a copy of this as he considers the Japanese garden to be his domain.

Next thing I get a phone call from him, that I should NEVER have used the word "Indian", et etc. He went on for about 10 minutes in his very loud domineering voice, until I had enough.

I asked him if he was threatening me, then I would immediately consult my lawyer, and that I had followed all the rules of publishing (available at that time).

He immediately stopped talking, and hung up.


We didn't have a lawyer, but we knew several, and the one I would have consulted is now the Chief Judge of the BC Supreme Court, but back then was the best criminal lawyer in town :-D



But I think along the same lines now ........... why change words in books and stories published years or hundreds of years ago. THAT is not the part of true publishing!

John Buchan's books would have to be revised too, to cut out all the British colonial attitudes, and derogatory references to Jews, "the Irish", and the lower classes.

Of course some of those lower-class people were jolly good fellows and loyal servants.

So true, Brian - things are getting ridiculous - but guess who's holding on to her original Roald Dahl books now!

Are 'Billy Bunter' books still available in libraries, I wonder?
I never liked them - but at least I had the chance to read one and decide for myself.

I've got some old 'Hank Janson' books (not bought by me, 'acquired' when someone died) - I've read one- they're not to my taste - but then neither is Jane Austen.
I'll definitely be holding on to the Janson's. They weren't so much anti-trans, as anti-women- but perhaps that's acceptable now.

From 'Wikipedia' - 'In the 1950s, the authorities attempted a crack-down on allegedly obscene pulp literature, targeting the Janson books among others.'

So nothing new, then!!

Then there's Roald Dahl's books being re-wriien to take out or replace words which might offend children.

Today's children could probably teach the censors a thing or two: the age of innocence is long gone.

Just waiting for Shakespeare's portrayal of Shylock in The Merchant of Venice to be branded anti-semitic and for his books to be burned.

What an exhausting and unhappy way to live one's life, always having to keep a lookout for things to be offended by.
It makes me feel tired just thinking about it.

What makes them so angry and intolerant all the time?

Maybe when they're older they'll realise that life's too short to waste energy like that.

Them made wonders of the world.

...or it could be with 'minding your manners', or differentiating between pints and quarts!
Have to admit, in our family it was to do with manners.

I wonder which one Sam Smith would choose?