When gloom starts to loom
The snow and ice that we have had to endure at the start of this year have seemed more in keeping with the Klondike than with Wakefield.
Travelling has been difficult, the forecasters have advised people to stay off the roads unless absolutely necessary, and we seem to be rapidly running out of salt and grit for the roads.
It is no wonder that a lot of people are suffering from cabin fever.
Cabin fever is the name given to a slight claustrophobic reaction that can occur when people are hemmed in, unable to get out and perceive themselves to be trapped by circumstances. As a result they can feel restless, irritable, and excessively sleepy and down in the dumps. Frustration underpins everything and they long for the snows to go so that they can get out.
It is not something that we tend to experience in this country, but in Alaska, and Canada and other parts of the world where people often do get snowed in during the winter months it is recognised as a potential problem.
Parents of young children and carers seem particularly liable to the problem.
There is a great Charlie Chaplin film called The Gold Rush, set during the 1898 Klondike Gold Rush. Our little hero, the tramp, sets off to make his fortune. He gets snowed into a prospector's cabin along with another gold-digger during a blizzard. They run out of food and water and are forced to boil and eat one of Charlie's boots in order to survive. They wash it down with alcohol with a predictable result.
It is one of the great comedic scenes of the cinema and is in fact a good depiction of cabin fever. They both get delirious, delusional and highly irritable. At one point the tramp's companion, Big Jim McKay, even imagines that the little tramp is a
chicken!
In the night, the cabin slips down the mountain to end up precariously balanced over a cliff edge. The two occupants attribute the movement of the cabin as it teeters on the edge, to their hangovers. As a Chaplin fan I cannot recommend the film too highly.
Interestingly, Chaplin directed the film himself and the scene in question is soon over. That is the illusion of cinema, since they actually took three days to make the scene and filmed more than 60 takes. The old boot was in fact made of liquorice by one of the Pontefract liquorice companies. The laxative nature of the liquorice became apparent after the scene was completed when Chaplin was actually admitted to hospital as a result.
It is to be hoped that this bad weather will not last. The thing is not to allow yourself to get too gloomy. The elderly should be especially careful of the cold. They should make sure that they are warm, have enough clothes and that they have warm food and warm drinks.
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Weather for Wakefield
Wednesday 23 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 13 C to 24 C
Wind Speed: 13 mph
Wind direction: North
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 12 C to 24 C
Wind Speed: 12 mph
Wind direction: North east
