Quotes from Philip Hoare

In June 1918, it was announced in The Times that soldiers would henceforth require a doctor's prescription to obtain twelve named drugs: 'barbitone, benzamine lactate, benzamine hydrochloride, chloral hydrate, coca, cocaine, codeine, diamorphine, Indian hemp, opium, morphine, and sulphonal and its homologues, and any salts, preparations, derivatives, or admixtures prepared from or with any these drugs.

Throughout the war, officers were routinely sent narcotics through the post by loved ones. Many pilots – with their pitifully short life expectancy – used morphine, and other members of the armed forces became addicts after morphine treatment for wounds

headlines such as 'Symbols of Shame', dwelling on the 'flapper' scandal, one of the most grievous and piteous of the many social scandals of this tragic time. Do these thoughtless chits, little more than children, realise that the regimental badges they display so exultantly, are in many cases nothing less than symbols of shame, obtained in exchange for more or less dangerous familiarities

If all the smart restaurants were closed down, the 'flapper' trade would probably close down also, and the flappers, disdaining the more humble eating-houses they were wont to frequent, may even return to their homes, which they left to imperil, if not to sacrifice, their chastity.

what sort of mothers can these girls have? The answer would supply an explanation of, but no excuse for, our national decadence and degradation

Alfred Baker, Town Clerk of Hertford and Treasurer of the Society of Vigilantes. Their campaign slogan ran: HINDER THE HUNS PARALYSE PROFITEERS PURIFY POLITICS WIN THE WAR

Smallwood the Coalition candidate was returned; and the Imperialist of 27 October offered a £500 reward 'to any person furnishing evidence to support a successful petition under "The Corrupt Practices Act

Our bodies are as unknown to us as the ocean, both familiar and strange; the sea inside ourselves.

dolphins are not the benevolent mammals we'd like them to be; those beaming faces hide the minds of assassins.

You assume you know your home. It's only when you return that you realise how strange it is.

The trouble with the world is, Frankie, that there are too many ideals and too little horse sense . . . Human beings don't like peace and good will and everybody loving everybody else . . . they're not made like that. Human beings like eating and drinking and loving and hating. They also like showing off, grabbing all they can, fighting for their rights and bossing anybody who'll give 'em half a chance.

Dane lived above a greengrocer's shop at 26 Tavistock Street, Covent Garden, with her secretary, Olwen Bowen, herself a writer of children's books, but who now devoted herself to the care of her companion. 'One climbed up a rickety staircase and there was Winifred, surrounded by her paintings, sculptures, a piano and goodness knows how many books, where she would give many after-the-theatre parties . . .

still regarded as highly eccentric outside reactionary conservative and fascist circles,' notes Richard Thurlow, 'it is interesting to note that some historians now argue that secret societies like the IRA and the Mafia have indeed played a significant role in world events …

The Manchester Guardian noted: 'People do not understand this legalistic attitude to affairs of life and death.

wrote White, expressing the firm belief that 'England will best Germany because Germany is wicked, and the English, if not salt of the earth, are "good" men

Billing's apparent defence of Christian values and Messianic pose brought him the bizarre support of the Christian Scientists, who had decided that he was 'the Saviour, Christ the King, come to redeem them in this moment of national peril

Weininger's theory is that women cannot love … have made no ideal of man to correspond with the male conception of the Madonna … The German conception of women is lower than that of the Zulus in Tschaaka's day', he summarised, conflating racism and xenophobia for readers whose knowledge of South Africa was defined by reports of the British victory in the Anglo-Boer War.

Indeed, the suffragette movement and its link to fascism represented one kind of genteel revolt by spirited upper-middle-class woman against the stultifying effects of the Victorian ethic of limiting the role of respectable ladies to ornaments in the social round.

Morality was the preserve – literally – of the middle classes; those at either end of the social scale were not obsessed with the moral glue that gave a new class its sense of cohesion.

Even the slang of the time – 'Isn't it killing' – had an inbuilt and not entirely unconscious irony.

Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man's original virtue,' wrote Oscar Wilde in The Soul of Man Under Socialism.

the refusal of a licence – the banning of Salome – was entirely due to Billing's antics, and not to any serious objection by the Lord Chamberlain;

this post-trial assessment by Lord Buckmaster: The licence was accordingly refused but the refusal was not due to an adverse judgement of the play. It may be hoped that the trial of the criminal proceedings is now forgotten and the only question is on what grounds found in the play itself can it be regarded as unfit for performance.

John Gielgud thought 'he was never the same after leaving England, though he wouldn't have admitted it. I think that tax business, and the way people reacted to it, shocked him . . . He wasn't much good as a tax exile. He didn't do a lot with his money. His houses were commonplace, the food dreadful, the decoration pretty amateurish.