{"id":529,"date":"2023-01-27T08:41:30","date_gmt":"2023-01-27T08:41:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/haguepublishing.com\/WotW\/?page_id=529"},"modified":"2023-02-17T02:34:48","modified_gmt":"2023-02-17T02:34:48","slug":"week-5","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/haguepublishing.com\/WotW\/week-5\/","title":{"rendered":"Week 5 and Postscript"},"content":{"rendered":"

What Happened Next<\/h2>\n\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t
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29-Jun 00:01 – Tuesday<\/div>

As the Daily Mail resumes publication Wells recovers sufficiently to bid farewell to London, but before he leaves he ventures out\u00a0 one more time to observe the return of its inhabitants.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And for Toni, released from the massive responsibility of operating the only functioning \u2018hospital\u2019 in London, her \u00a0mind can turn to other things \u2013 like what to do now, and what the future might look like.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

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29-Jun 10:56 @toniwantstovote<\/div>

#Patients are now being transported to #London\u2019s reopened #hospitals. I feel\u2026#strange\u2026#WasHelping #WantToHelp<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

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29-Jun 11:07 @toniwantstovote<\/div>

@LizCadbury says we are still helping. @GraceHarwoodStewart and I will head into the streets as #QueenAnnesMansions empties. Our #nurses are travelling with our #patients, but our #oldies are keen to help.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

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29-Jun 12:06 @toniwantstovote<\/div>
\"29-Jun<\/a><\/div>

Just said farewell to @EdithCavellNurse – Am sure she\u2019ll go far. #FabulousNurse #NewFriend<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

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29-Jun 16:15 #DailyMailResumes<\/div>
\"29-Jun<\/a><\/div>

The Daily Mail has resumed publication, with the news that examination of the Martian mechanisms have yielded astonishing results. Among other things, the article assures readers that the ‘SECRET OF FLYING DISCOVERED” – although this is later proved premature.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

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29-Jun 17:00 @HGWells #OneMoreNight<\/div>

Despite the family’s attempts to dissuade Wells from travelling to Leatherhead, Wells decides to look once more on whatever remained of the little life that seemed so happy and bright in his past. Though he promises to stay with them that night.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

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29-Jun 18:00 @HGWells #PeopleAreReturning<\/div>

Wells returns to the streets that had lately been so dark and strange and empty, but are now already busy with returning people; in places there were even shops open, and he pauses to gaze at a drinking-fountain running water.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

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29-Jun 18:15 @HGWells #LondonIsACityOfTramps<\/div>
\"29-Jun<\/a><\/div>

The streets around Wells are busy and vivid the moving life. So many people were abroad everywhere, busied in a thousand activities, that it seemed incredible that any great proportion of the population could have been slain.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But then he notices the yellow skins of the people he met, how shaggy the hair of the men, how large and bright their eyes, and that every other man still wore his dirty rags. The faces seemed all with one of two expressions\u2014a leaping exultation and energy or a grim resolution.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Save for the expression of the faces, London seems a city of tramps. The vestries are indiscriminately distributing bread sent by the French government. The ribs of the few horses show dismally, while haggard special constables with white badges stand at every corner.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

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29-Jun 19:00 @toniwantstovote<\/div>

Ventured out into the streets with @GraceHarwoodStewart. @LizCadbury was correct. Many people needed #help. #IAmStillHelping #determination #IAmUseful<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

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29-Jun 19:15 @toniwantstovote<\/div>

Thinking about returning to my studies now. @graceharwoodstewart is nearly qualified. I have a way to go. But #iwillbeadoctor #ihavebeenadoctor when there was no-one else.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

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29-Jun 19:31 @toniwantstovote<\/div>
\"29-Jun<\/a><\/div>

@LizCadbury says @NUWSS will step up their campaigning for the vote. People have seen us do what the #GovernmentInExile didn\u2019t do. And we\u2019re going to work on other things. #WeDemandTheVote #WomenInPolitics<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

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29-Jun 21:50 @toniwantstovote<\/div>

Missing @HGWellsBro #sadness #WillItStillBeTheSame?<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

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30-Jun 00:01 – Wednesday<\/div>

Wells, back in his own mind, and taking advantage of the free trains running from Waterloo, returns to Woking to be reunited with his wife.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

While Toni receives word from her friend (Well\u2019s brother) that he had survived the war in a French refugee camp.<\/p>\n

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And for those still with us we explore what the future will bring for those who have shared their lives with us during this fictionalised docudrama, starting with the 1900 election and David Lloyd George\u2019s landside victory that resulted in Salisbury\u2019s coalition of Unionists and Conservatives being reduced to a mere rump as the Liberals win 54% of the vote, while the Labour Representation Committee, later to become the Labour Party, wins 25%.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

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30-Jun 07:00 @HGWells #FreeTrains<\/div>

Free trains are being run from Waterloo to return people to their homes. The first rush being over Wells gets a compartment to himself. Just outside the terminus the train jolts over temporary rails, and Wells averts his eyes from the blackened ruins lining the track.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

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30-Jun 07:15 @HGWells #AStrangerInTheirOwnHome<\/div>

For those such as Wells returning home to Woking, England is a shock, the country appears gaunt and unfamiliar; Wimbledon particularly had suffered. Walton, by virtue of its unburned pine-woods, seems the least hurt of any place along the line to Woking.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Wells writes that “every little stream was a heaped mass of red weed, in appearance between butcher’s meat and pickled cabbage.”<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

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30-Jun 07:30 @toniwantstovote<\/div>

Awoke to news of free trains shipping people back to #London. @LizCadbury says we can stay for a while to sort out our affairs. #relieved #oldies are now back in their own apartments, but we are #family<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

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30-Jun 07:55 @toniwantstovote<\/div>

Will miss everyone here when I leave. @SirJohnTheEngineer says to come over for dinner each week. #WillBeNice #family #friends<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

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30-Jun 07:59 @toniwantstovote<\/div>

Heading to @NUWSS HQ for another meeting this morning. @MilliFawcett says we need to capitalise on the momentum #WeDemandTheVote #WomenInPolitics<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

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30-Jun 08:00 @HGWells #Sappers<\/div>
\"30-Jun<\/a><\/div>

Beyond Wimbledon, within sight of the line, is the mound surrounding the 6th cylinder. A number of people are standing about watching some sappers busy in the midst of it. Over it a Union Jack, flaps cheerfully in the morning breeze.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

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30-Jun 09:00 @HGWells #FullCircle<\/div>

The line on the London side of Woking station is still under repair, so Wells descends at Byfleet and takes the road to Maybury, past the place where he and the artilleryman had talked to the hussars, and on by the spot where he had first seen the Martian during the storm.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

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30-Jun 11:00 @HGWells #SheGivesAFaintCry<\/div>
\"30-Jun<\/a><\/div>

Well’s house is standing, but hope for his wife fades when he sees the door has been forced. Inside his house hope fades, but then a voice. “It is no use. The house is deserted. No one has been here these ten days. Do not stay here to torment yourself. No one escaped but you.”<\/p>\n

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Startled he turns to see the French window open behind him. And there, amazed and afraid, even as Wells stood amazed and afraid, were his cousin and his wife \u2014 his wife white and tearless. She gives a faint cry.<\/p>\n

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“I came,” she says, “I knew\u2014knew\u2014” She puts her hand to her throat \u2014 sways. Wells makes a step forward, and catches her in his arms.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

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30-Jun 11:01 @toniwantstovote<\/div>

@RationalDressSociety your #DividedSkirts with #pockets saved my life. I mean it. They saved my life. #RoomForGasMask #CouldMove #NeverWearingANormalSkirtAgain<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

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30-Jun 15:16 @toniwantstovote<\/div>

BEST NEWS EVER @HGWellsBro is ALIVE!!!!!!! Received telegram a few moments ago.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

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30-Jun 15:17 @toniwantstovote<\/div>

@HGWELLS-BRO HOW DID YOU END UP IN #FRANCE QUERY LIKE SERIOUSLY COMMA YOU SAID YOU WERE GOING TO #WOKING STOP #SO-HAPPY #YOU-MUST-BECOME-ALLY ENDS<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

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30-Jun 16:17 @toniwantstovote<\/div>

@HG-WELLS-BRO FORGOT STOP YOU OWE ME DINNER STOP KEPT DIARY IN TELEGRAPH STYLE FOR #ENTIRE-MONTH ENDS<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

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A Farewell to Arms<\/div>
\"A<\/a><\/div>

‘Postscript & Afterwords’<\/p>\n

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While bidding farewell to those who have shared their lives with us over the past month, we should remember that many of those who survived the Martian invasion would continue to suffer its consequences for the rest of their lives.<\/p>\n

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Indeed, while Well’s was eventually re-united with his wife, he continued to suffer, as many others did, the trauma of what they had lived through during that terrible time. The last words of his seminal work provide some insight into that:<\/p>\n

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‘I must confess the stress and danger of that time have left an abiding sense of doubt and insecurity in my mind and suddenly I see again the valley below me set with writhing flames, and feel the house behind and about me empty and desolate…<\/p>\n

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‘I go to London and see the busy multitudes in Fleet Street and the Strand and it comes across my mind that they are but the ghosts of the past, haunting the streets that I have seen silent and wretched, phantasms in a dead city the mockery of life in a galvanised body…<\/p>\n

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‘Of a night I see the black powder darkening the silent streets, and the contorted bodies shrouded in that layer. They rise upon me tattered and dog-bitten, they gibber and grow fiercer\u2026and I wake cold and wretched.’<\/p>\n

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A Slow Recovery to a Much Delayed Diamond Jubilee<\/div>
\"A<\/a><\/div>

England’s recovery from the devastation caused by the Martians took several years, indeed St Pauls was not reopened for ten years, while the government remained in Birmingham until repairs were completed to Westminister in mid 1898.<\/p>\n

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With the damage London had suffered, Queen Victoria’s initial reluctance to have a formal parade to celebrate her Diamond Jubilee (which had been planned for 22 June 1897) resurfaced.<\/p>\n

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However, when presented with a petition signed by all members of parliament supporting the celebration the Queen conceded, and at 11:15 am on Sunday 19 July 1898, the Queen, took an open carriage from the Palace to Westminster, where a thanksgiving service took place.<\/sup><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

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Postscript: @DavidLloydGeorgePM 1900-1922<\/div>
\"Postscript:<\/a><\/div>

David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor, OM, KStJ, PC (17 January 1863 \u2013 26 March 1945) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1900 to 1922. A Liberal Party statesman and politician from Wales, he was known for the social-reform policies he introduced (including the National Insurance Act 1911), and for negotiating the establishment of the Irish Free State. He was the last Liberal Party prime minister; the party fell into third-party status shortly after the end of his premiership.<\/p>\n

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He succeeded\u00a0Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury<\/strong> KG GCVO PC FRS DL (1830 \u2013 1903) the Conservative politician who had served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the Martian invasion.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Despite beating the Martians, the 1900 election resulted in Salisbury\u2019s<\/strong> coalition of Unionists and Conservatives being reduced to a mere rump with the Liberals gaining 54% of the vote, and the Labour Representation Committee, later to become the Labour Party, winning 25%.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Historians generally agree that the size of the Liberal victory was due to the anger those south of the Gascoyne-Cecil Line felt against the government who’d ‘left them behind’ to fend for themselves.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The organisation and grass roots support by groups, such as the NUWSS whose organisational ability had been built, and refined during the war, also proved vital to the size of the swing. Their reward, of course was the introduction of Universal Suffrage in 1902.<\/p>\n

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The ‘Universal Suffrage Act’ was one of the first Acts passed by the new Liberal government upon its election in 1900, but was subsequently rejected by the Conservative-dominated House of Lords.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Following a 2nd general election in December, the Act was passed with the assent of the new monarch, George V, after the House of Lords was forced to concede following the Government’s threat to overcome the Conservative majority in the Lords by creating a number of new peers.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

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Authors & Afterwords<\/div>

Authored by:<\/p>\n