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Message: [QUOTE="Martin Williams, post: 265772, member: 141861"] Forster's 'Howards End' is a magnificent book which was later turned into an equally magnificent film. I first read it when I was in my teens but returned to it last year and was simply blown away. It isn't an easy read by any means but when you 'crack it' - and I've only just scratched the surface, further readings will yield greater and greater riches - it simply takes your breath away. It may be a truism but the English middle classes are, as you say, a law unto themselves; they always have been and they always will be. The nuances and gradations separating the various levels WITHIN that one social group are just as pronounced as those separating the very rich from the very poor. The professional middle class, for example, is very different to the industrial middle class, the urban from the rural, the progressive from the conservative. In 'Howards End', the conflict is between the artistic, literate, liberal-minded Schlegels and the money-making, philistine Wilcoxes. On both sides, the various characters engage in a frantic struggle to connect - 'only connect' being the central message and a concept which, with my interests in the arts AND in people, I try to live up to everyday. I can't help wondering how the Schlegels and the Wilcoxes would have behaved on if they had been on the 'Titanic'. With their notions of masculinity and gallantry, I like to think that Mr Wilcox and Charles would have 'gone down like gentlemen', like Major b*** and Benjamin Guggenheim, having first shepherded their women to the boats. But they could just as easily have taken advantage of their first-class status to board one of the first boats away. We're only discussing fictional characters, of course, but such a discussion casts an interesting light on late-Edwardian society, which was poised to undergo all the upheavals and revolutions the twentieth-century could throw at it. I would heartily recommend J.B. Priestley's 'The Edwardians' to you, if you have not yet read it. It is a lively, informed panorama of an entire age and Priestley takes particular care to cast an ironic but affectionate eye over the middle-class world (or, rather, worlds) of his youth. And then there is Vera Brittain, of course - her 'Testament of Youth' is a wonderful, poignant evocation of just that milieu from which the likes of Thomas and Edith Pears sprang. I apologise that my contributions to any of the discussions I've engaged in so far are lacking in 'evidence' and hard facts. It seems to me that there are countless individuals posting on this board who can command far more information than I, some derived from months and years of painstaking research. Nevertheless, I find it really fascinating to hear the thoughts of fellow board-members on subjects, issues and personalities which have intrigued me since I first became gripped by the 'Titanic' story as a child. [/QUOTE]

Verification: In which year did the Titanic sail?