The Man who Cried Trivia Quiz

Answer: Florrie

Alice was murdered by her husband because Abel's wife wrote and told him about the affair she was having. This was the final straw for Abel, and he took Dick away from her abuse.

Answer: a barge

Daphne and her mother (who was never named) employed Abel for their two week holiday to handle the barge, but after three days the mother made advances towards Abel, and they left the next morning. They were to see Daphne later in the story.

Answer: she ignored Dick

Abel worked for an entire day in the pouring rain for one ration of food and drink - this he shared with his son. Tilda never even appeared to notice that Dick was there at all. She saw Abel as an answer to prayer for her farm, which was badly run down, even though the house was pristine.

In escaping from the chains, Dick and Abel hurt her, and reported the incident to a doctor as soon as they were able. This doctor was a relative of hers, and soon assured them, on returning to the farm, that she would be well.

They were to meet the doctor later in the story.

Answer: Peter Maxwell

Peter was to offer Abel a job with his cars, and a flat over the workshop. This was a godsend, but for one problem. Knowing that Peter was a religious man, Abel believed that he would have been upset if he knew that he had taken Dick away from his mother. He pretended to be a widower and changed their name from Mason to Grey, his mother's maiden name.

Answer: 109 Temple Street

After Peter Maxwell died (some time after Abel and Dick were established in his employ) Hilda sent Abel to tell her father and sister what had happened.

Answer: that he would live with her without marriage

He had an idea that Hilda wanted marriage after Peter died. Sure that he and Dick would be turned out if he refused, or if she knew he had been lying about his wife, he felt he was left with little alternative. His first option was to live with her without wedlock, but she would not entertain this. He married her, but drew the line at a ceremony in a church.

Answer: she owned a clothes shop

Hilda disapproved of the relationships Florrie had had in her life, and deemed her a loose woman because she had never got married. Abel fell in love with Florrie almost the moment he saw her and was later to have a lasting affair with his sister-in-law, and was to father her child.

Answer: he was an Air Raid Warden

Dick was to try for the RAF but his emotional problems (stemming from lying about his mother for many years) caused physical difficulties such as twitches and stammering, and this prevented him from joining up. The book ends while the war is still on, so we do not discover what he decided to do instead.

Answer: Dick's sweetheart

Molly lived next door and spent most of her life as a drudge to her voluntarily bed-bound mother. She was to die from shock in an air raid, and Molly felt guilty for she had just admitted to Dick that she wished her mother dead. Dick confessed that he often wished his own mother dead.

Answer: nine months imprisonment

Hilda wrote to the court telling them that she had been offered a relationship without marriage, that Abel refused to marry her in a church, and that he profited in no way from her business affairs in the period of their marriage. This, along with the bad impression given by his first wife, went a long way to the lenient sentence given.