Word: biddulph
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...what begins in seedy depression evolves into the story of an extraordinary friendship. In addition to the comfort of the bottle, Mrs. Kavanagh had Mrs. Biddulph, a regular drinking buddy whenever she was not serving short sentences for shoplifiting. The two women were different but complementary. Mrs Kavanagh was vulnerable because she was friendly. Her last pinch at the hands of the police came about because she made a public nuisance of herself by muzzily trying to shake strangers hands. Mrs Biddulph survives on a generalized anger about the state's institutuion compassion and the pathetic efforts...
There is no shortage of well-meaning people in British Novelist James Hanley's latest book: bobbies judges, probation officers and clergymen, even a kind neighbor who wants to befriend Mrs. Biddulph, after being shaken by the sight of her friend lying broken on the pavement. Mrs. B. rejects them all, apparently because they cannot substitute anything as authentic as her own bitter loneliness...
Fade out of sight and mind as quickly as possible," says a gentleman to a work house fugitive in that early book. The welfare state does not talk that honestly to Mrs. Kavanagh and Mrs. Biddulph, but the message remains pretty much the same...