The Therapy Zone

Hazardous Sports

  During one of No.6's electoral speeches of Free For All, he told the electorate that they can enjoy themselves, and you will. You can partake in the most hazardous sports, and you will.

   Well you can't today, because there's the 'Health & Safety Executive' are determined to spoil your fun! Children are dissuaded from playing 'Conkers' in the playground, this activity is considered too dangerous. The swings and round-about area of the park is fitted out with black squares of safety material so children do not suffer cuts and grazes!

   You can no longer ride a bicycle without wearing something resembling a bed-pan on your head! Health and safety is everywhere these days, even in the village, and if they can stop you from enjoying yourself - the H&S executive will!

   Of course any hazardous sport comes with safety equipment, and there are certain safety procedures to follow, but in this day and age people are dissuaded from any dangerous activity, activities which years ago we would have thought nothing of. Well there was no health and safety back then, well very little anyway. We climbed trees, jumped ditches in the English county of Lincolnshire. Played conkers, and tag in the playground. We had fights, cut, grazes and got bruised in fights, and what's more we are alive to tell the tale. No molly codling for us, that's for wimps and mummy's boys! Mind you, mummy was always there with the antiseptic and plaster when we did draw blood, and more often than not, kissed it better for us!

You Miss it When It’s Gone!

The Prisoner found it an irritation on the morning of his arrival. He couldn't turn it off, so he trampled it to pieces under foot. But even then that didn't stop the music playing!

   By the time of the Chimes of Big Ben No.6 had found a more subtle and novel way of restoring peace and quiet to his cottage. This by placing the black speaker inside his refrigerator, thus rendering the device ineffective to his hearing. So then why was this so effective, when on the morning of his arrival when he smashed the speaker under foot - no I'm not going there. Well there are certain things one simply has to accept as being as they are, otherwise you could go to the grave wondering WHY?

   And then the morning arrives when No.6 wakes up to find that the water has been cut off, so too the electricity, and outside the village is deserted! We are talking the morning of Many Happy Returns. To top it all, the programme of early morning music isn't playing! No.6 even picks up the black speaker, he shakes it, but remains silent. And so it is that even No.6 misses the music when it's not there, you do don't you. You see, when something is no longer there you miss it. You might take little notice of it, but its there all the time, and when its gone you miss it. I wonder if No.6 will miss the village when it’s gone? I wonder if McGoohan ever missed the Prisoner - perhaps not!

BCNU