Fifteen Questions about 'Time and the Conways' Quiz

Answer: Alan is the eldest and Carol is the youngest

The Conways are apparently very close together in age, although the only ages that are given exactly are Robin's and Kay's. Robin is twenty-three in 1919, in the first act; and it is Kay's twenty-first birthday party. Carol is the youngest 'perhaps sixteen'. Alan is the eldest, 'in his earlier twenties'; Madge is a 'year or two older than Hazel'; and Hazel is the same age as Joan Helford, who is forty-one in Act Two.

So, with this detective work, we can guess the Conways' ages fairly accurately as:
Alan (25), Madge (24), Robin (23), Hazel (22), Kay (21) and Carol (16).

Answer: He was drowned while on holiday

Hazel and Carol are talking about their father's death at the beginning of Act One. Hazel feels Carol is being morbid, and wants to change the subject. Later on, Mrs Conway says to Gerald Thornton that when her husband died she wouldn't have wanted to go on living if it hadn't been for the children.

Answer: Robin

Robin has just been de-mobbed from the RAF, in which he was an officer, and arrives home in Act One. Alan was a lance-corporal and says he had no ambition to achieve a higher rank. Robin makes his contempt for Ernest Beevers clear when he discovers Ernest was in the Army Pay Corps.

Answer: Lloyd George

Carol and Hazel are imitating a local shopkeeper who despises Lloyd George. "I tell you what, Mish Conway, they'll be shorry they ever put that little Welshman where they did." Lloyd George headed the war-time coalition government formed with Asquith in 1916. He was a Liberal and an anti-imperialist.

Answer: Four

Robin and Joan have two children, and Hazel and Ernest also have two. None of the other Conways is married.

Answer: Carol

Ernest shocks his wife, Hazel, by suddenly bursting out with this opinion. He has married Hazel, the prettiest, and the one he always wanted; but he remembers sourly how he was looked down on and snubbed by the entire family when he was first introduced to them - all except for Carol, who was natural and friendly towards him. "It didn't take me two minutes to see that little Carol was the best of the lot. Didn't surprise me when she went off like that. Out! Finish! Too good to last!"

Answer: She took an overdose

Hazel is feeling melancholy and depressed at the family meeting. This leads her to wonder how far one can tell tell what other people are feeling. She remembers that Jessie had always been particularly cheerful, and then one day she suddenly took all her asprins, claiming afterwards that she had simply had enough of everything.

The maid's act reflects the mood of Hazel and most of the other Conways in Act Two. They are tense, on bad terms with each other, the shadow of the next war is looming, and nearly all of them have money problems.

Answer: An American film star

Kay has recently written an article about this Hollywood actress for the popular press. She tells Alan that she has to be in Southampton early the next morning on order to meet yet another film star and write another similar article.

Kay is weary of writing about celebrities and their love affairs, and feels that her work in journalism is worthless and a waste of her talents.

Answer: Kay

An astounding remark for a mother to make, especially as Hazel is present at the time! Mrs Conway, at the very beginning of the play, is portrayed as a loving and devoted mother who is delighted and thankful to have her family back together again, but cracks soon appear in this image.

She is given to making spiteful comments even in 1919, and seems to be particularly malicious towards Madge. She makes no bones about having favourites, who are Hazel and Robin; and this is obviously because they are the most good-looking and popular. She is also rather insensitive to Kay.

"Poor Madge takes so many lotions and powders that no man has ever looked at her twice," she remarks to the others when Madge is upstairs. To Hazel she says: "You're such a fool with that little husband of yours," and to Joan, her daughter-in-law, she is barely civil. At the end of the family meeting, she lashes out at all them, accusing them of disappointing her, and calls Alan "a shabby little clerk that no one would look at twice" (which does not worry Alan at all). Madge accuses her of being a bad mother, and it is hard not to agree with her, given that most of the Conways have serious problems by this stage and Mrs Conway, as far as we can judge, is not offering much support or understanding.

Answer: The Garden of Stars

Like many budding authors, Kay finds it easier to think of an appealing title than to complete a whole book. Hazel remarks of "The Garden of Stars" that there were so many bits of paper lying around with the opening words on that she knew them by heart. Kay, discouraged by her first attempt, tears up the manuscript; but she immediately thinks of another idea, and confides it to Carol, who is much more sympathetic and encouraging than Hazel.

Answer: Alan

In Act Two, we may wonder why no Carol makes her appearance at the family meeting. We last saw her at the age of sixteen in 1919. When Mrs Conway starts talking about her grave, we realise she has died young. The other Conways now find out that Alan has been paying all these years for flowers to be put on her tomb.

The loss of Carol, before the age of twenty, has certainly made a difference to the family.

Answer: Hide and Seek

Charades were being acted by the Conways (including Mrs Conway) at the party they are holding in 1919. They rope in Joan Helford, and even Gerald Thornton and Ernest Beevers, to act. Robin arrives unexpectedly in the middle of the party, and is greeted with joy by Mrs Conway. Later on, when most of the guests have gone, a game of hide and seek 'all over the house' is suggested.

This is obviously a family tradition. Joan, who has been secretly in love with Robin for some time, is flustered when Alan comes in to the darkened room where she is hiding.

He attempts to tell of his feelings for her, but she hastily tells him to go out or he will 'spoil it'. Robin, who has never before noticed Joan, then comes in to find her. As soon as she confesses to loving him, he believes he loves her in return and they plan to get married. 'Let's be happy for ever and ever!'

Answer: Her mother makes her look foolish in front of Gerald Thornton

It seems like a small piece of spite, but Madge reveals her true self while she is talking to Gerald. She gets carried away in her enthusiasm and begins to recite poetry. Gerald, fascinated by her (and rather overwhelmed) remarks that he has never seen her like this before.

She responds happily, "This is the real me." At that moment Mrs Conway comes in and belittles Madge's appearance and her speech with a brief cutting remark. In Act Two Madge brings the incident up and accuses her mother of deliberately destroying her happiness.

Answer: Idealistic

Madge's view of the League of Nations is inspired by the idealism of its founder, Woodrow Wilson. The American president was optimistic that future wars could be prevented by the League, and the covenant was set up in 1919. Madge is also a Socialist and has a belief that people, horrified by the Great War, will now have learnt better and will turn their backs on strikes, capitalism and violence.

She also believes that 'men and women won't play silly games of cross-purposes any more, they will go forward together, sharing everything.'

Answer: He tells her time is only a dream

Alan's serenity and peace of mind are due to his having broader awareness of reality than the other characters in the play. Kay is not only unhappy with her life (a painful love affair that has just ended and frustration about her career) but she finds it unbearable to look back in time. "Remember what we once were, and what we thought we'd be?" Indeed, in Act Three (back in 1919) we feel Kay's pain as the characters recite their ambitions for the future and we, the audience, know that none of them is fated to be realised. The young Kay vows she will "never write just to make money', Hazel says she intends to go to London as she cannot possibly spend her whole life in Newlingham, and Carol, most poignantly of all, declares "I'm going to LIVE!".

Alan has been reading about theories of time and passes on some of these to Kay (attempting to explain that the 'happy young Conways' are just as real and accessible as the disappointed characters who have just been quarrelling bitterly). However we feel Alan's inner peace is not only to do with theories, but is owing to something in his character - his unselfishness and unworldliness, and his ability to accept disappointments in his life without bitterness.

J.B Priestly was interested in several authors who wrote about time, including JW Dunne ('An Experiment With Time'). In the play 'I Have Been Here Before', he makes use of Ouspensky's theories.