Charlie Fenton > Recent Status Updates

“Fox once asked me who it was all for. But the question is what was it all for. I’ll tell you. For idle ambition, for a feeble desire to be acknowledged by those I admire.”

‘Yet it went way beyond bias: Flinn was lying through his teeth. For not only did his published conclusions contradict his stated opinion to Dr Drinker - ‘I cannot but feel that the paint is to blame for the girls’ conditions’ - but in June 1926, six months before his study was published, Flinn finally discovered two radium-poisoning cases at the Waterbury Clock Company.’

‘Sarah’s own life may have been cut short, but the radium inside her had a half-life of 1,600 years. It would be shooting out its rays from Sarah’s bones for centuries, long after she was gone. Even though it had killed her, it kept on bombarding her body ‘every day, every week, month after month, year after year’... It is bombarding her body to this day.’

‘Ironically, the radium did, at first, boost the health of those it had infiltrated; there were more red blood cells, something that gave the illusion of excellent health... But it was an illusion only. That stimulation of the bone marrow, by which the red blood cells were produced, soon became overstimulation. The body couldn’t keep up.’

It is funny the things you forget about or miss the first time round. For instance, Harry reading a book about quidditch which says there are 700 ways of committing a foul and all of them happened in the World Cup match of 1973 xD

‘He was startled to see a dozen men, women and children standing outside the crematorium. It was cold and the sun had set long ago. Their faces were grey like the road. Witold guessed that they were about to be killed, and they seemed to know it too... Then the gate to the crematorium opened and he and the others disappeared inside. Muffled shots followed.’

‘It was radium, lurking in Mollie Maggia’s bones, that had caused her jaw to splinter. It was radium, making itself at home in Hazel Kuser, that had eaten away at her skull until her jawbones had holes riddled right through them. It was radium, shooting out its constant rays, that was battering Marguerite Carlough’s mouth, even at this moment.’

‘At once, Viedt reported these developments to the New York headquarters. Not long after, USRC executives decided to launch an investigation to determine if there was anything dangerous in the work. For too long there had been rumour and suspicion; it couldn’t continue. After all - now, it was bad for business.’

That’s what it all comes down to for these people at the end of the day.

‘Your question as to whether a good act could have bad consequences does not apply to my experiment, since, as I say, experiments are neutral. Of course ill could come out of a good act, though surely it would be inadvertent. No one can intend both good and ill. That defies logic as of course you know.’

‘Other than Sabin von Sochocky’s one-off warning to Grace Fryer that lip-pointing would ‘make her sick’, not a single other dial-painter, including the instructresses and forewomen, ever reported a warning being issued; and certainly not one that included reference to lip-pointing being a ‘dangerous practice’. On the contrary, they had received countless assurances of the exact opposite’

‘On 12 September, at 5 p.m., her mouth was flooded with blood as she haemorrhaged so fast that Edith could not staunch it. Her mouth, empty of teeth, empty of jawbone, empty of words, filled with blood, instead, until it spilled over her lips and down her stricken, shaken face. It was too much. She died, her sister Quinta said, a ‘painful and terrible death’.’

‘Conscious of the pace of work around her, she bent again to her task and slipped the brush between her lips.
“Do not do that,” he said to her suddenly.
Grace paused and looked up, perplexed. This was how you did the job; how all the girls did it.
“Do not do that,” he said to her again. “You will get sick.”
And then he was on his way.’

‘All of Katherine’s life radium had been a magnificent cure-all, treating not just cancer, but hay fever, gout, constipation... anything you could think of. Pharmacists sold radioactive dressings and pills; there were also radium clinics and spas for those who could afford them.’

Audiobook version, which I can’t find on here.

‘The teenagers were married in 1533 and Mary duly became the Duchess of Richmond and Somerset... Fitzroy had not been permitted to consummate his marriage with his Duchess, and so, when he died three years after their wedding, Mary was not permitted to keep any of the lands or income that should have been her due as a widow on the grounds that the marriage had not been a complete or official one.’

‘The human mind was capable of infinite journeying within itself. It needed a body in which to live, a body in health. But what need had it of other minds? How long could it survive solus, in solitude, feeding on its own riches? One year? Seven years? A lifetime? Could a man survive in comfort with the company of himself alone?’

Wow, I did not see that plot twist coming!

‘Marguerite was young, healthy and hearty. Despite an advanced pregnancy she chose to travel to be with Edward in the north, which delighted him - possibly it reminded him of his dear Eleanor, who had often accompanied him when he rode off to war. So energetic was this young queen that she was actually out hunting when she went into labour.’

‘What makes Cartimandua so interesting is that the Romans treated with her at all. Although Celtic society was very modern in respect to their allowing women to rule and fight alongside their men, the Roman world was very traditional... Cartimandua went directly against Roman societal norms, yet unlike Boudica and her daughters, she was allowed to keep her position.’

‘I got home. Went to a dance. There was a girl I liked. ‘Let’s go out together.’
‘What for? You’re a Chernobyl guy now. Who’d want to marry you?’
I met another girl. We were kissing and cuddling, things were getting serious. ‘Let’s get married,’ I said. And she asked something like: ‘You mean you can do that? It’s all in working order?’’

‘We got to our destination. Changed uniforms.
The question was: what were we in for? ‘An accident, it happened a while back,’ our captain reassured us. ‘Three months ago. Nothing to worry about now.’ The sergeant said: ‘Everything’s fine, just wash your hands before eating.’

The more I read the more disgusted I am. They knew perfectly well that it wasn’t safe.

‘Aunt Nan lost her baby days afterwards. It would have been a son. A prince. The child so wanted by the King that he had turned his Kingdom upside down to reject one marriage to make a new. Like fire catching at kindling, rumours raced around Greenwich. One horrible rumour said the dead child was deformed - a sign of a marriage cursed - a marriage that God did not want.’

‘The robots couldn’t take it, the equipment was going crazy. But we did our work. We sometimes got blood coming out of our ears, our noses. A tickling in the throat, your eyes stinging. There was this constant drone in your ears. You felt thirsty, but lost all appetite. We weren’t allowed to do our morning exercises, to keep us from breathing in extra radiation. Though we travelled to work in open-top trucks.’

‘I want to testify: my daughter died from Chernobyl. But they want us to keep quiet. ‘It hasn’t been scientifically proved,’ they say. ‘There isn’t enough data. We’ll need to wait hundreds of years.’ But my human life, it’s too short. I can’t wait that long. Write it down. You record it at least. My daughter’s name was Katya. My little Katya. She was seven years old when she died.’

‘I killed her. I … she … saved … My little girl saved me, she took the whole brunt of the radiation herself, like she was a buffer. So small. Such a teeny little thing.’

This will sound harsh but I am always so conflicted when I hear this. It is awful but on the other hand they kept warning her what would happen if she continued to sneak into her husband’s room. Just tragic, shouldn’t have happened.

‘The sarcophagus is a corpse which still has breath. It is breathing death. How much longer does it have? Nobody really knows: it remains impossible to access many of the structural components to assess their soundness. What everybody does know is that, should the Shelter Object fail, it would unleash consequences even more devastating than in 1986.’

‘I would have gone to my grave denying what I know true, that you and Harry were of the King’s blood. I would have done it for you. What does it matter in any case? William deserved the name of “father.” The King? Once he became enamoured of my sister, he forgot me, he forgot you. I hoped he had forgotten about Harry, too, but discovered to my grief that a son is harder to forget, especially for him’

Well this is certainly going to be a creepy but interesting read.