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17 July 2024

This England: A walking nightmare

This column – which, though named after a line in Shakespeare’s “Richard II”, refers to the whole of Britain – has run in the New Statesman since 1934.

By New Statesman

A woman from Cumbria who suffers from extreme sleepwalking has slept in her living room for two years – to avoid falling down the stairs. Angela Caulfield, 53, has had the condition most of her life, which has led to numerous injuries. It has also seen her make dinner or walk up and down a plane aisle. She once unknowingly ordered £1,400 of plants online to her home. “The delivery man was looking for a garden centre,” she said.
The Mail (Jenny Woodhouse)

Something doesn’t gel here

A dad-to-be tasked with packing his pregnant partner’s hospital bag filled it with hair gel and a whistle. Liv Nightingale, 23, was “baffled” when her partner Ryan, 25, took the “essentials” to Worcester Hospital. Instead of towels and nightwear he had packed a T-shirt with Eastenders’ Max Branning on it and two dresses. “Two going-out dresses? I’m 34 weeks pregnant, where am I wearing these?” she asked in a viral post.
Worcester News (Amanda Welles)

Just add water

After a long day, the pool attendant Tyler Turner wished she could have been a mermaid – just as she imagined as a girl. “Then a lightbulb went off in my head,” she said. Seven years on, she is often found in the sea with her tail. When she bought her first tail she was a lone mermaid, but over the years she has found a group of like-minded people. She is part of Dŵr Tails, a group of 11 people in northern Wales who dress up as mermaids.
BBC Wales (Steve Morley)

[See also: This England: McMarriage]

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This article appears in the 17 Jul 2024 issue of the New Statesman, The American Berserk