Presenter: … Doug was born in February 1929 and Dinsdale two weeks later; and again a week after that. Someone who remembers them well was their next door neighbor, Mrs. April Simmel.
Mrs. Simmel: Oh yes Kipling Road was a typical East End Street, people were in and out of each other’s houses with each other’s property all day. They were a cheery lot.
Interviewer: Was it a terribly violent area?
Mrs. Simmel: Oh no…yes. Cheerful and violent. I remember Doug was keen on boxing, but when he learned to walk he took up putting the boot in the groin. He was very interested in that. His mother had a terrible job getting him to come in for tea. Putting his little boot in he’d be, bless him. All the kids were like that then, they didn’t have their heads stuffed with all this Cartesian dualism.
Somewhat related, I recall visiting my parents during home leave in the mid 2000s. We were watching the news and there was a story about a murder in Kansas City, MO.
I was irritated by that, and said something to the effect: “why are they wasting time on this?”
My mom replied “it’s important we know this, there’s a killer on the loose.”
To which I replied “and you think he’s going to drive 8 hours to Minneapolis and continue his shooting spree here? No, there was no crime nearby to scare us with, they had to go all the way to Missouri for that.”
The news has an incentive to make the world seem ultra dangerous in order to get viewers to watch.
