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alt_arthurI've seen your mum and dad, Hermione, and they've given me a letter to you which I will forward to Minerva, and she'll see that you get it. They are doing as well as can be expected. They've had enough food, and no major illnesses, and their work is keeping them extremely busy. Whenever they come into a camp, there's quite a queue out the door for their services.
I've been thinking a bit about that, actually. The camps are fearfully short of medical workers of all kinds:healers doctors in all specialities, nurses, health aides. Your father did mention that they really do have a pressing need for assistants, but he cannot find anyone who has had the proper training. And how are more to be trained, when every medical and dental school has been shut down? Not to mention the terrible dearth of the sorts of medical supplies that Muggles use.
I've been hearing, here and there, some rather interesting rumblings along these lines from some of the chaps in the Department of Muggle Domestication. And I've had some of those little clues dropped that suggest that there may be a few sympathetic ears in that department for some of the Order's views.
James Prescott, for instance. I've mentioned him before: he tried, in a rather indirect way, to thwart Rookwood's request for Muggle test subjects last year for the Department of Mysteries. Without much luck, unfortunately, but he did try. When I stopped by the Department this past week, one of Prescott's assistants, young woman by the name of Norma Brownmiller, was working on a report about the drop in educated practitioners in certain fields (due to the death toll of the last decade, especially people who were targeted because of their education): people like the engineers who build bridges, for example, or who run elektrical plants or wastewater treatment facilities. I found it extremely telling, that Prescott gave Ms Brownmiller the assignment to investigate the matter in the first place. Most of the superior snobs running the Ministry haven't given a moment's thought to what will happen in thirty or forty years when the few Muggle doctors left to treat the Muggles (and keep epidemics partially in check) finish dying off and there's no one to replace them. Or bridges and building structures start failing, or motorways begin collapsing and there's no one left alive who has been trained to know how to fix them. But Prescott has given it some thought--a lot of thought--and Ms Brownmiller's figures get more and more hair-raising, the further out in time they are projected. 'It takes perhaps a generation to break a culture, Weasley,' Prescott told me, as we were looking over the charts. 'And once that information is lost, I'm not sure we can get it back.'
'And the alternative would be . . . ?' I said, letting the statement hang there suggestively.
He looked at me sharply, and hesitated, wondering, no doubt, how much I could be trusted. He took his time rolling the chart back up, still staring at me, and then apparently made up his mind. He leaned forward and said, low in my ear, 'that we make bloody well sure the information is not lost.'
So. Definitely there is something there worth cultivating.
I've been thinking a bit about that, actually. The camps are fearfully short of medical workers of all kinds:
I've been hearing, here and there, some rather interesting rumblings along these lines from some of the chaps in the Department of Muggle Domestication. And I've had some of those little clues dropped that suggest that there may be a few sympathetic ears in that department for some of the Order's views.
James Prescott, for instance. I've mentioned him before: he tried, in a rather indirect way, to thwart Rookwood's request for Muggle test subjects last year for the Department of Mysteries. Without much luck, unfortunately, but he did try. When I stopped by the Department this past week, one of Prescott's assistants, young woman by the name of Norma Brownmiller, was working on a report about the drop in educated practitioners in certain fields (due to the death toll of the last decade, especially people who were targeted because of their education): people like the engineers who build bridges, for example, or who run elektrical plants or wastewater treatment facilities. I found it extremely telling, that Prescott gave Ms Brownmiller the assignment to investigate the matter in the first place. Most of the superior snobs running the Ministry haven't given a moment's thought to what will happen in thirty or forty years when the few Muggle doctors left to treat the Muggles (and keep epidemics partially in check) finish dying off and there's no one to replace them. Or bridges and building structures start failing, or motorways begin collapsing and there's no one left alive who has been trained to know how to fix them. But Prescott has given it some thought--a lot of thought--and Ms Brownmiller's figures get more and more hair-raising, the further out in time they are projected. 'It takes perhaps a generation to break a culture, Weasley,' Prescott told me, as we were looking over the charts. 'And once that information is lost, I'm not sure we can get it back.'
'And the alternative would be . . . ?' I said, letting the statement hang there suggestively.
He looked at me sharply, and hesitated, wondering, no doubt, how much I could be trusted. He took his time rolling the chart back up, still staring at me, and then apparently made up his mind. He leaned forward and said, low in my ear, 'that we make bloody well sure the information is not lost.'
So. Definitely there is something there worth cultivating.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-16 04:37 am (UTC)