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There the green and creamy-coloured tram-car seems to pause and purr with curious satisfaction. But in a few minutes - the clock on the turret of the Wholesale Society's Shops gives the time - away it starts once more on the adventure ... Who is going to risk himself in the black gulf outside, to wait perhaps an hour for another tram, then to see the forlorn notice 'Depot Only,' because there is somthing wrong! Or to greet a unit of three bright cars all so tight with people that they mail past with a howl of derision. ... With a tram packed with howling colliers, roaring hymns downstairs and a sort of antiphony of obscenities upstairs, the lasses are perfectly at their ease.
D.H. Lawrence, 'Tickets, Please' from England, My England, Penguin, 1966, p. 42.
TIME: early 20th c.
PLACE: English Midlands
CIRCUMSTANCE: 'The most dangerous tram-service in England'
The roundabouts were veering round and grinding out their music, the side shows were making as much comotion as possible ... He threw quoits on a table, and won for her two large, pale-blue hat-pins. And then, hearing the noise of the cinemas, announcing another performance, they climbed the boards and went in.
Of course, during those performances pitch darkness falls from time to time, when the machine goes wrong. Then there is a wild whooping, and a loud smacking of simulated kisses.
D.H. Lawrence, 'Tickets, Please,' from England, My England, Penguin, 1966, p. 44-45.
TIME: World War One
PLACE: a fairground in the English Midlands
CIRCUMSTANCE: a young couple at the fair
And there was a dead silence, in which the thud of heartbeating was to be heard. It was a suspence of pure silence in every soul.
D.H. Lawrence, 'Tickets, Please,' from England, My England, Penguin, 1966, p. 51.
TIME: World War One
PLACE: the English Midlands
CIRCUMSTANCE: a group of women confront a gadabout.
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