return to top page FOURTH WORLD NEWS
For Small Nations, Small Communities & The Human Spirit
Vol. 1 No. 18. February 1983 Price 25pEdited by Nicholas Albery Touch For Health Month I decided this term as part of a college project, to see if we could artificially promote the amount that people touch each other in non-sexual, non-intrusive ways. We launched a 'Touch For Health Month' for November 1982, using the chain letter principle, and asking people to touch three men and three women they would not normally touch, and to get them in turn to enrol six others to do the same. We put out a press release and soon we were mini-stars, interviewed in a dozen newspapers and radio programmes.
We researched the whole subject of touching, reading four fascinating books which I recommend to anyone interested (in my order of preference, they are 'The Continuum Concept' by Jean Liedloff, published by Duckworth, 1975; 'Touching' by Ashley Montagu, published by Harper and Row, 1977; 'Body Politics' a paperback by Nancy Henley, 1977; and 'Intimate Behaviour' by Desmond Morris, published by Jonathan Cape, 1971).
We learnt the vital importance of parents carrying their children around for the first two years of their lives; that many asthmatic conditions and skin rashes can be cured by touching; that premature babies do better when fondled; that adults touched in a barely perceptible manner by a librarian reported more positive feelings not only about the librarian but also about the library and even the books; and that people in a cafe in Puerto Rico touched 198 times in an hour, whereas in a British cafe the tally was zero.
We decided to survey our own college canteen: during our 'Touch For Health Month', incidents of touching per hour went up from zero to an average of 20.
We interviewed members of the public in working-class Newnham and in middle-class Hampstead at the end of the month, and discovered that 24% had heard of our efforts and 4% had touched more as a result.If these results are applicable nationally (and most of our coverage was national) this would mean that some 12,000,000 people have become more aware of the benefits of touching, and some 2,000,000 have touched others more - which all goes to demonstrate how much a small group (5 of us) with a limited budget (£ 24) and limited time(seven Fridays) can achieve, using the same chain letter principle proposed as an anti-nuclear tactic in this issue's main editorial.
Our research has now been published by 'Revelaction Press' at an excessively fancy price, but it would be worth ordering though the library reservation card system.
The details are 'Touching - the promotion of touching in casual social encounters', by N. Albery and others, published by Revelaction Press, 48 Abingdon Villas, London W8, Dec 1982,L3.95, ISBN 0950524433.
copies of this document may be obtained from 26 The High Street, Purton, Wiltshire SN5 4AE, UK
Tel: 01793 77 22 14 Fax: 01793 77 25 21
e-mail: john.papworth@btinternet.com
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