How Brown
08-13-2009, 06:18 PM
The following is not a quote but rather an anecdote that Nina shared with me today at lunch.
Nina's former husband's grandmother was born in Lebanon....in the 1890's.
She neither spoke nor read English and spent her formative years in the Middle Eastern nation.
She used to tell her daughter ( when the daughter was a small girl) stories back in the 1920's that when children misbehaved and disrespected their elders, that if they didn't wise up that the "Bad Man From England" would come and take them and carry them off...and that he liked to cut them about the neck.
Morbid,perhaps....but nevertheless, I find it interesting that someone who was unable to speak English and lived so far away from Britain knew about the "Bad Man" from England....
...and furthermore, the grandmother may have been told that story when SHE was a child growing up and simply passing them down to her daughter in time.
Nina's former husband's grandmother was born in Lebanon....in the 1890's.
She neither spoke nor read English and spent her formative years in the Middle Eastern nation.
She used to tell her daughter ( when the daughter was a small girl) stories back in the 1920's that when children misbehaved and disrespected their elders, that if they didn't wise up that the "Bad Man From England" would come and take them and carry them off...and that he liked to cut them about the neck.
Morbid,perhaps....but nevertheless, I find it interesting that someone who was unable to speak English and lived so far away from Britain knew about the "Bad Man" from England....
...and furthermore, the grandmother may have been told that story when SHE was a child growing up and simply passing them down to her daughter in time.