According to these strange protesters we had at the Fabian society conference. Lenin was a Fabian. (Shaw said so - I don't think Lenin was, it was just Shaw trying to shake things up.) The Fabian society is completely unsecretive and sold tickets to their conference to anyone, by the way, not just members.
These protesters are nothing if not confusing, and their arguments, that socialists are capitalists and the world is run by the Rothschilds, indicate an unwillingness or inability to separate one idea from another. But this film is quite funny.
pic.twitter.com/RZgjYEEbBx
Sorry - it has been shortened, but honestly it was funny because they start to quote Magna Carta as though it is a magic spell which will take us all back to Merrie England when everyone was happy. Yeah, right.
Showing posts with label Fabian. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fabian. Show all posts
Sunday, 14 January 2018
Fabian Society conference
At the last minute, I decided to try the Fabian Society conference for interest. I took the train to Waterloo and then the Northern line to Euston, came past the bus station and across the Euston Road. There, with a patch of garden to one side, was the Friends' Meeting House, an excellent venue for the purpose. The first meeting was in the "Light" - a square lecture theatre with a square roof light, with an interesting aperture leading to it, diminishing in size as it went up.
Although I was five or ten minutes late, the Keynote speaker wasn't speaking as I went in. There was a great hubbub and some booing and shouting. The Fabians' meeting had been interrupted by Right wing extremists, an old bald chap, and about 6 younger men, all white, in their twenties. The old bald chap was in a right old lather and kept shouting and showing us the American flag. He was offended, I think, that we are not to be visited by Donald Trump, the President of the United States, and thought quite rightly that Sadiq Khan (the Mayor of London) is in some way to blame for this. Sadiq Khan did not respond to him, and the chair of the meeting (a dignified Scotswoman) stayed quite calm (even witty) and waited for the police to come and take him and the supporters away, because they were causing a breach of the peace or whatever. I thought that the Fabians have something in common with the Quakers in that although the Fabians were about a thousand strong they didn't resort to rounding them up and putting them outside themselves, but waited for the police to come. We just booed and shouted "Get out". We all wished that the press had not been there giving the demonstrators publicity - there were far more press men and women than activists. There were about 25 press personnel and two camera crews - they were acting on the hope and expectation that there would be a demonstration. So after about half an hour the demonstrators were ejected, but it was a great nuisance and made us feel very unsettled.
Film of this interruption is supplied by the Telegraph
The Mayor - this is quicker than writing his name - said that in this, the centenary of women finally getting the vote in this country, absolute gender equality is far from our grasp. Change has happened too slowly. Only from 1994 has there been such a thing as rape of a wife by a husband. He said that there has been zero progress in the last decade and there are even signs of progress eroding. An anti-feminist movement is on the rise. "Feminist" is being made to sound pejorative. "Social justice warriors" is being used as an insult. (How can it be an insult?) S. Khan says we must fight back. He, personally, is trying to make City Hall a model workplace for women. He says men must challenge the culture in pubs, and workplaces. He says the policies in the election manifesto must be studied carefully for their impact on women. This is something that the Labour Party didn't do well at the last election. (The Fabian Society analysed their manifesto promises and judged that they would not improve life for the people they aimed to help.)
Throughout the conference the chair of the meeting asked for questions and took the first question from a woman, because it has been found scientifically that if the first question is asked by a woman, other women will ask questions, but if the first question is asked by a man, more men than women ask the questions. However, in the case of the Fabian conference woman were given the floor many more times than the men. I think this unfair. They were also careful to chose people of ethnic minorities. This is fair enough.
There were ideas about misogyny being included as a category of "hate crime" and what to do about online hate crime.
The Mayor wanted much more funding for child services, parenting classes and youth services. I agree. I think cutting all of these is a false economy.
The Mayor himself goes and visits schools in order to raise the aspirations of the children, and especially primary schools. He is interested in what schools are doing about equality and self-esteem in all the children, girls and boys and different races. Tells children his father was an immigrant bus driver but he became a lawyer - mainly because one of his teachers told him he enjoyed arguing so much, he should be a lawyer.
He also thinks schools have gone too far promoting Science, Technology and Maths, and should be encouraging students into the arts. The arts are strong in the UK and make a huge impact worldwide - we should do more to encourage them.
My impression of Sadiq Khan is that he is intelligent enough to do his job well, and that he even has a sense of humour at times, but he has a lot to put up with. In short, I liked him.
Sadiq Khan wore an expensive-looking black suit with some sort of white trainers and a collared shirt buttoned up to the top. This may be a fashionable look but I absolutely didn't like it and spent some time trying to decide what would suit him! In particular, I didn't like the buttoned-up neck but no tie look. On the other hand, ties signal a very conformist attitude these days. I think maybe a thin jumper in a subtle colour under the suit, but the suit was too black for my taste - it looked like funeral wear. I looked up his Google images and found he usually wears a blue suit and often wears a tie. I hope he has some brogues.
He didn't mention terrorism. Trump said Khan was complacent for saying that all big cities are prone to terrorist attacks and the risk of them is a part of living in one these days. I think Londoners would agree with him. They know that there are loads of people working in security to prevent and deal with terrorist attacks, because we all know someone who does. We have all seen the huge barriers in place to protect areas that would be vulnerable. Nobody thinks the Mayor isn't providing what is needed in the way of security or prevention.
Although I was five or ten minutes late, the Keynote speaker wasn't speaking as I went in. There was a great hubbub and some booing and shouting. The Fabians' meeting had been interrupted by Right wing extremists, an old bald chap, and about 6 younger men, all white, in their twenties. The old bald chap was in a right old lather and kept shouting and showing us the American flag. He was offended, I think, that we are not to be visited by Donald Trump, the President of the United States, and thought quite rightly that Sadiq Khan (the Mayor of London) is in some way to blame for this. Sadiq Khan did not respond to him, and the chair of the meeting (a dignified Scotswoman) stayed quite calm (even witty) and waited for the police to come and take him and the supporters away, because they were causing a breach of the peace or whatever. I thought that the Fabians have something in common with the Quakers in that although the Fabians were about a thousand strong they didn't resort to rounding them up and putting them outside themselves, but waited for the police to come. We just booed and shouted "Get out". We all wished that the press had not been there giving the demonstrators publicity - there were far more press men and women than activists. There were about 25 press personnel and two camera crews - they were acting on the hope and expectation that there would be a demonstration. So after about half an hour the demonstrators were ejected, but it was a great nuisance and made us feel very unsettled.
Film of this interruption is supplied by the Telegraph
The Mayor - this is quicker than writing his name - said that in this, the centenary of women finally getting the vote in this country, absolute gender equality is far from our grasp. Change has happened too slowly. Only from 1994 has there been such a thing as rape of a wife by a husband. He said that there has been zero progress in the last decade and there are even signs of progress eroding. An anti-feminist movement is on the rise. "Feminist" is being made to sound pejorative. "Social justice warriors" is being used as an insult. (How can it be an insult?) S. Khan says we must fight back. He, personally, is trying to make City Hall a model workplace for women. He says men must challenge the culture in pubs, and workplaces. He says the policies in the election manifesto must be studied carefully for their impact on women. This is something that the Labour Party didn't do well at the last election. (The Fabian Society analysed their manifesto promises and judged that they would not improve life for the people they aimed to help.)
Throughout the conference the chair of the meeting asked for questions and took the first question from a woman, because it has been found scientifically that if the first question is asked by a woman, other women will ask questions, but if the first question is asked by a man, more men than women ask the questions. However, in the case of the Fabian conference woman were given the floor many more times than the men. I think this unfair. They were also careful to chose people of ethnic minorities. This is fair enough.
There were ideas about misogyny being included as a category of "hate crime" and what to do about online hate crime.
The Mayor wanted much more funding for child services, parenting classes and youth services. I agree. I think cutting all of these is a false economy.
The Mayor himself goes and visits schools in order to raise the aspirations of the children, and especially primary schools. He is interested in what schools are doing about equality and self-esteem in all the children, girls and boys and different races. Tells children his father was an immigrant bus driver but he became a lawyer - mainly because one of his teachers told him he enjoyed arguing so much, he should be a lawyer.
He also thinks schools have gone too far promoting Science, Technology and Maths, and should be encouraging students into the arts. The arts are strong in the UK and make a huge impact worldwide - we should do more to encourage them.
My impression of Sadiq Khan is that he is intelligent enough to do his job well, and that he even has a sense of humour at times, but he has a lot to put up with. In short, I liked him.
Sadiq Khan wore an expensive-looking black suit with some sort of white trainers and a collared shirt buttoned up to the top. This may be a fashionable look but I absolutely didn't like it and spent some time trying to decide what would suit him! In particular, I didn't like the buttoned-up neck but no tie look. On the other hand, ties signal a very conformist attitude these days. I think maybe a thin jumper in a subtle colour under the suit, but the suit was too black for my taste - it looked like funeral wear. I looked up his Google images and found he usually wears a blue suit and often wears a tie. I hope he has some brogues.
He didn't mention terrorism. Trump said Khan was complacent for saying that all big cities are prone to terrorist attacks and the risk of them is a part of living in one these days. I think Londoners would agree with him. They know that there are loads of people working in security to prevent and deal with terrorist attacks, because we all know someone who does. We have all seen the huge barriers in place to protect areas that would be vulnerable. Nobody thinks the Mayor isn't providing what is needed in the way of security or prevention.
Wednesday, 21 June 2017
Picture Archive, Stockton-on-Tees
Stockton on Tees is a small town near to Middlesbrough. My mother was born and grew up there, but although she would say she came from Stockton she actually came from a small village just North and West of there called Norton. My mother, Kathleen, was the youngest of five children - a Catholic family.
Recently I skimmed a Fabian tract on a shrinking birth-rate written by Sidney Webb in the early years of the 20th century - he was so concerned that only the Catholics and Jews were still having large families, but he needn't have worried! These are segments of society that take life seriously, when you think about it, and the children would do well. But he was a racist - he couldn't help it: he thought that the Anglo-Saxon race was about to be overwhelmed by the Jews and the Irish and that this was a terrible thing.
Early in the 20th century my Irish-named great grandfather, Michael O'Grady, was working on shipbuilding in Newcastle. In the census he specified that he worked on both iron and steel ships, I can imagine him being dogmatic about it; and the census return shows he kept a servant as well as a wife, Isabella, and a daughter, also Isabella, and two sons. Perhaps at a time when there were fewer ships to build he did a strange thing: he left his wife and children and went to Australia. Did he promise to send them money? Did he write? I don't know. One of his sons fought and died in the Great war. The other went to visit him and eventually settled in Hastings, New Zealand, where he had a second-hand clothing shop that did quite well. He married a widow with two daughters and was comfortable. He often wrote to his sister, Isabella O'Grady the second, back in Stockton-on-Tees, and when my mother wrote to him he always sent her a Postal Order for five shillings. My mother remembers a little shrine by a window on the stairs to her other uncle, who joined the Durhams (the Durham Light Infantry) and died in France, along with rows and rows and rows of others. A photo, some medals, a prayer. His name is on the Menin Gate.
Isabella O'Grady married a veteran of the First World War. I think she might have thought herself lucky to get him, with the shortage of men about the country. His name was Harry Walker, a native of Stockton, and I think they met through church. She told my mother that he was always asking her to marry him, and she refused several times, until one day in 1919 he said to her, "You might as well marry me, you're not doing anything else." The truth of it hit home. She was already thirty one! She didn't have a job - perhaps she just helped her mother keep house, and went out each day to buy the meat and vegetables, flour and fat. They made cakes and bread; they didn't buy those. Once she dressed up in her best costume and had her picture taken, She wore a two piece costume in a light colour, a large hat, a rather vacant expression, and her Holy medals. He had been through the war and had been invalided out, gassed. He had a raking cough for the rest of his life. At this time he worked as a shop assistant, I think in a gentleman's outfitters, but the cough became a problem, and later he had to work as a gardener where the cough didn't matter so much.
After they married, babies came quickly. First Moira, a bright little girl, then three boys, Terence, Austin and Dennis. Then my mother, born twelve years after Moira, when her mother was about 45. So Isabella the second had the five children, a husband, her elderly mother, Mrs O'Grady living at home, and to make it more difficult, a prolapsed womb. My mother said she didn't think her mother paid much attention to her when she was a baby, because her mother was so busy, and that she was cared for by her Grandma and by Moira, that as soon as she could be pushed out in a pram with the other children, it was Moira who pushed her. The children, of course, played in the road, and at the end of the road was a council park, and they played there too. At night she slept with her grandma, a very pious Catholic, because, my mother said, she was a convert, "more Catholic than the Catholics". Grandma sang to her the "Guardian angel from heaven so bright" song as a lullaby.
Moira passed an exam and won a place at a posh school. She might have gone into an office to work after that but war broke out so soon after she joined the ATS. I imagine she was very good at the work she was given. What Terence did in the war I don't know. Terence and my mother didn't like each other. He was good at bursting other people's bubbles, and she wouldn't have liked that. Austin joined the Navy, until he had a nervous breakdown. Whatever happened to him in the Navy was deeply traumatic and he was never able to lead a fulfilling life afterwards. Dennis, the next brother, turned out to be C3 - he had a damaged ear-drum, and became very deaf later in life, but he was also reliable and always employed. I don't know what he did during the war. My mother was a schoolgirl in the war, and it was during this time that she became her mother's companion and pet, and she got all the attention she had wanted, and not had, from her in her early years.
Harry Walker, my mother's father, who coughed terribly, became very ill with his chest, and was hospitalised at intervals. In 1945 Isabella visited him in hospital and he said to her "I've always loved you, you know." My grandmother did not say she loved him. She had always refused to visit his family. My mother remembered walking to Thornaby with him to visit his sister, of whom he was very fond. On these walks he taught her the song of the Durham Light Infantry "We are the boys" and he also taught her music hall songs, such as - "You Can't Play in Our Back Yard Anymore" and "On Mother Kelly's Doorstep". I think he sang well. He had at times tried to lay the law down to Isabella, and she had somehow or other turned all his children against him. Although people said she was "a lovely person", my grandmother Isabella seems to me to have been spoilt and resentful. Anyway, after this hospital visit, my grandfather died, and Isabella regretted that she had not said anything kind to him, even, "I loved you, too." She had just made a face and a scornful noise. This is what she told my mother at the time, and my mother told me. He was 53 when he died and my grandmother got a war widow's pension, I believe. He has no memorial.
At some point the old lady, the first Isabella, contracted gangrene of the foot and couldn't be cared for at home any more, so she went into a hospital for old people. I don't think it was a workhouse, but it was like one. There were long wards full of the elderly. One day they visited her and there was an old lady looking miserable with a black eye and bruises. Mrs O'Grady nodded towards her and said: "She attacked one of the nurses". Nothing more was said. Mrs O'Grady was liked and respected, and was well-known in her Church. She died soon afterwards.
I look at the pictures that come up in the picture archive, Stockton-on-Tees, because I am interested in the world that my mother grew up in, and I see that the people who were her contemporaries, whose lives were documented in their schools and church outings and football teams, were amazing, cheerful people, somehow harder and sharper than we are, and it seems to me that my mother must have missed them all her life, these people who made up a society with a real sense of itself, defined in time by wars and other hardships.
Recently I skimmed a Fabian tract on a shrinking birth-rate written by Sidney Webb in the early years of the 20th century - he was so concerned that only the Catholics and Jews were still having large families, but he needn't have worried! These are segments of society that take life seriously, when you think about it, and the children would do well. But he was a racist - he couldn't help it: he thought that the Anglo-Saxon race was about to be overwhelmed by the Jews and the Irish and that this was a terrible thing.
Early in the 20th century my Irish-named great grandfather, Michael O'Grady, was working on shipbuilding in Newcastle. In the census he specified that he worked on both iron and steel ships, I can imagine him being dogmatic about it; and the census return shows he kept a servant as well as a wife, Isabella, and a daughter, also Isabella, and two sons. Perhaps at a time when there were fewer ships to build he did a strange thing: he left his wife and children and went to Australia. Did he promise to send them money? Did he write? I don't know. One of his sons fought and died in the Great war. The other went to visit him and eventually settled in Hastings, New Zealand, where he had a second-hand clothing shop that did quite well. He married a widow with two daughters and was comfortable. He often wrote to his sister, Isabella O'Grady the second, back in Stockton-on-Tees, and when my mother wrote to him he always sent her a Postal Order for five shillings. My mother remembers a little shrine by a window on the stairs to her other uncle, who joined the Durhams (the Durham Light Infantry) and died in France, along with rows and rows and rows of others. A photo, some medals, a prayer. His name is on the Menin Gate.
Isabella O'Grady married a veteran of the First World War. I think she might have thought herself lucky to get him, with the shortage of men about the country. His name was Harry Walker, a native of Stockton, and I think they met through church. She told my mother that he was always asking her to marry him, and she refused several times, until one day in 1919 he said to her, "You might as well marry me, you're not doing anything else." The truth of it hit home. She was already thirty one! She didn't have a job - perhaps she just helped her mother keep house, and went out each day to buy the meat and vegetables, flour and fat. They made cakes and bread; they didn't buy those. Once she dressed up in her best costume and had her picture taken, She wore a two piece costume in a light colour, a large hat, a rather vacant expression, and her Holy medals. He had been through the war and had been invalided out, gassed. He had a raking cough for the rest of his life. At this time he worked as a shop assistant, I think in a gentleman's outfitters, but the cough became a problem, and later he had to work as a gardener where the cough didn't matter so much.
After they married, babies came quickly. First Moira, a bright little girl, then three boys, Terence, Austin and Dennis. Then my mother, born twelve years after Moira, when her mother was about 45. So Isabella the second had the five children, a husband, her elderly mother, Mrs O'Grady living at home, and to make it more difficult, a prolapsed womb. My mother said she didn't think her mother paid much attention to her when she was a baby, because her mother was so busy, and that she was cared for by her Grandma and by Moira, that as soon as she could be pushed out in a pram with the other children, it was Moira who pushed her. The children, of course, played in the road, and at the end of the road was a council park, and they played there too. At night she slept with her grandma, a very pious Catholic, because, my mother said, she was a convert, "more Catholic than the Catholics". Grandma sang to her the "Guardian angel from heaven so bright" song as a lullaby.
Moira passed an exam and won a place at a posh school. She might have gone into an office to work after that but war broke out so soon after she joined the ATS. I imagine she was very good at the work she was given. What Terence did in the war I don't know. Terence and my mother didn't like each other. He was good at bursting other people's bubbles, and she wouldn't have liked that. Austin joined the Navy, until he had a nervous breakdown. Whatever happened to him in the Navy was deeply traumatic and he was never able to lead a fulfilling life afterwards. Dennis, the next brother, turned out to be C3 - he had a damaged ear-drum, and became very deaf later in life, but he was also reliable and always employed. I don't know what he did during the war. My mother was a schoolgirl in the war, and it was during this time that she became her mother's companion and pet, and she got all the attention she had wanted, and not had, from her in her early years.
Harry Walker, my mother's father, who coughed terribly, became very ill with his chest, and was hospitalised at intervals. In 1945 Isabella visited him in hospital and he said to her "I've always loved you, you know." My grandmother did not say she loved him. She had always refused to visit his family. My mother remembered walking to Thornaby with him to visit his sister, of whom he was very fond. On these walks he taught her the song of the Durham Light Infantry "We are the boys" and he also taught her music hall songs, such as - "You Can't Play in Our Back Yard Anymore" and "On Mother Kelly's Doorstep". I think he sang well. He had at times tried to lay the law down to Isabella, and she had somehow or other turned all his children against him. Although people said she was "a lovely person", my grandmother Isabella seems to me to have been spoilt and resentful. Anyway, after this hospital visit, my grandfather died, and Isabella regretted that she had not said anything kind to him, even, "I loved you, too." She had just made a face and a scornful noise. This is what she told my mother at the time, and my mother told me. He was 53 when he died and my grandmother got a war widow's pension, I believe. He has no memorial.
At some point the old lady, the first Isabella, contracted gangrene of the foot and couldn't be cared for at home any more, so she went into a hospital for old people. I don't think it was a workhouse, but it was like one. There were long wards full of the elderly. One day they visited her and there was an old lady looking miserable with a black eye and bruises. Mrs O'Grady nodded towards her and said: "She attacked one of the nurses". Nothing more was said. Mrs O'Grady was liked and respected, and was well-known in her Church. She died soon afterwards.
I look at the pictures that come up in the picture archive, Stockton-on-Tees, because I am interested in the world that my mother grew up in, and I see that the people who were her contemporaries, whose lives were documented in their schools and church outings and football teams, were amazing, cheerful people, somehow harder and sharper than we are, and it seems to me that my mother must have missed them all her life, these people who made up a society with a real sense of itself, defined in time by wars and other hardships.
Thursday, 6 March 2014
the Story of the Amulet by Edith Nesbit
I love the Nesbits, and this one is my favourite.
In the Story of the Amulet, the children who found the psammead (sammy-ad) that could grant them wishes find an amulet in a London junk shop, that can take them anywhere in the past to look for the other half of itself. They have to hold up the amulet and say the sacred name (which is read to them by the learned gentleman in the flat upstairs) and the amulet grows into a doorway, and they walk through it to wherever in time they want to go. The stories are very exciting - for example, the time they are imprisoned in ancient Babylon, they want to escape but then they remember that Jane has the amulet and Jane is missing! Jane, who is the indiscreet youngest, is telling the Babylonian queen all sorts of fascinating facts about Edwardian London with the result that the queen says "I wish I could see your country some day." and the psammead has to grant her wish.
So some weeks later the ancient Babylonian queen visits the children in London. She is very tyrannical, unsuitably dressed and wants all kinds of things. She is not happy with London. Someone has the bright idea of taking her to the British Museum and she is very angry that so many of her precious possessions are in there. She starts to break the glass cases and take her things back and the guards throw her out, believing she should be locked up in an asylum.
Because her husband was an appalling philanderer, and she didn't see why she should not, E Nesbit had a number of lovers, many of them younger than herself, and stayed friends with them even after they had married other women. I think her stories were always written with her mind on the amusement of her peer group - H.G. Wells, for example, loved them, probably Shaw too.
In the Story of the Amulet, the children who found the psammead (sammy-ad) that could grant them wishes find an amulet in a London junk shop, that can take them anywhere in the past to look for the other half of itself. They have to hold up the amulet and say the sacred name (which is read to them by the learned gentleman in the flat upstairs) and the amulet grows into a doorway, and they walk through it to wherever in time they want to go. The stories are very exciting - for example, the time they are imprisoned in ancient Babylon, they want to escape but then they remember that Jane has the amulet and Jane is missing! Jane, who is the indiscreet youngest, is telling the Babylonian queen all sorts of fascinating facts about Edwardian London with the result that the queen says "I wish I could see your country some day." and the psammead has to grant her wish.
So some weeks later the ancient Babylonian queen visits the children in London. She is very tyrannical, unsuitably dressed and wants all kinds of things. She is not happy with London. Someone has the bright idea of taking her to the British Museum and she is very angry that so many of her precious possessions are in there. She starts to break the glass cases and take her things back and the guards throw her out, believing she should be locked up in an asylum.
Anthea took the Queen’s hand and gently pulled her away. The other children followed, and the black crowd of angry gentlemen stood on the steps watching them. It was when the little party of disgraced children, with the Queen who had disgraced them, had reached the middle of the courtyard that her eyes fell on the bag where the Psammead was. She stopped short.That's my favourite chapter and it's very funny. when E. Nesbit was researching her stories she simply went to the B.M. and knocked on the door marked Curator. She made a friend of the learned gentleman who worked behind the door and then they became more than friendly, probably on a glass case. She dedicated the book to him, Dr Wallis Budge.
“I wish,” she said, very loud and clear, “that all those Babylonian things would come out to me here—slowly, so that those dogs and slaves can see the working of the great Queen’s magic.”
“Oh, you are a tiresome woman,” said the Psammead in its bag, but it puffed itself out.
Next moment there was a crash. The glass swing doors and all their framework were smashed suddenly and completely. The crowd of angry gentlemen sprang aside when they saw what had done this. But the nastiest of them was not quick enough, and he was roughly pushed out of the way by an enormous stone bull that was floating steadily through the door. It came and stood beside the Queen in the middle of the courtyard.
It was followed by more stone images, by great slabs of carved stone, bricks, helmets, tools, weapons, fetters, wine‐jars, bowls, bottles, vases, jugs, saucers, seals, and the round long things, something like rolling pins with marks on them like the print of little bird‐feet, necklaces, collars, rings, armlets, earrings—heaps and heaps and heaps of things, far more than anyone had time to count, or even to see distinctly.
All the angry gentlemen had abruptly sat down on the Museum steps except the nice one. He stood with his hands in his pockets just as though he was quite used to seeing great stone bulls and all sorts of small Babylonish objects float out into the Museum yard. But he sent a man to close the big iron gates.
Because her husband was an appalling philanderer, and she didn't see why she should not, E Nesbit had a number of lovers, many of them younger than herself, and stayed friends with them even after they had married other women. I think her stories were always written with her mind on the amusement of her peer group - H.G. Wells, for example, loved them, probably Shaw too.
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