I was ten years old when I heard the radio broadcast, in our family kitchen
in Maritime (Eastern) Canada. The film is a knockout, thought in those days
we knew little about that; the abdication speech got a lot more attention.
I have an attendant memory trace that might be of interest, especially to
those concerned with child rearing and family counselling. Between the radio
broadcasts and my big brother who would relate to me his highly imaginative
scenarios about enemy soldiers about to parachute into our cow pastures and
grain fields, I developed what I suppose was some sort of a 'fear neurosis'
so severe that it began to keep me lying abed in my room during daylight
hours.
After a few days my father began to make enquiries, and learned from dear
big brother that he had been telling me some stories that could have
frightened me. Dad then came up and sat on my bed for a little chat. He
assurred me that we were a very long distance from what was going on across
the Atlantic, and that any liklihood of enemy troops landing on our little
community was really just my big brother's fertile imagination. Within the
hour I had recovered my usual boyish energy running about outdoors.
We tend to underestimate the minds and emotional profiles of our children.
Take care about what is spoken in their presence---and don't make too much
of catastrophic horizons. The amount of 'horror' going down on current media
is almost bound to be hurtful, and some of those creating it should perhaps
be already in jail for just another configuration of 'child abuse'.
