Photo of Oswell Blakeston
by Howard Coster
half-plate film negative, 1930s
Transferred from Central Office of Information, 1974
Peter is a sickly child who lives in Switzerland for his health. He misses England and wishes he had some friends here; but his mother tells him there are no suitable companions in the village. Nurse looks after him, and his mother is here, but he never sees his father. If there is one thing Peter hates to eat, it’s sago, “those awful, slimy eggs”. Unable to finish his sago desert, Peter hides it away in a box in his dressing-table.
Mistaking his flushed appearance for fever, nurse confines him to bed, where uneasy dreams assail him. Then it seems that the dreams are gone, as if there was something else here so horrible that even the dreams are frightened away.
A disturbing portrait of an unhappy childhood, illustrated with what strike me as unerringly accurate observations as glimpsed through a child’s eye.
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