A Bias to Lose

Manic-Depressive Illness, now called Bipolar Disorder, is a mental condition that can be more apparent to close acquaintances than to the affected person. Powerful mood changes can drastically affect the subject's ability to make rational decisions, and to fulfil them. During the 'manic' period, a heady optimism paints a future that is sunny, enticing with opportunities and adventure. New friendships are easily made, the world is wonderful, and so is everybody in it. But it is just a passing phase, and in a few weeks that world turns to dust, the outlook to catastrophe and life to an abhorred existence. Promises, so eagerly made during the golden era, are now unfulfillable encumbrances, shackles of iron, making escape impossible. The strongest desire is to escape from the world, death can seem the best event possible, if only one could just switch oneself off. This phase passes too, and normality returns, a few weeks of calm before it all happens again, like riding the big wheel at the fair. The early 1960s, amidst the ferment of change, at a remote farm in Britain's South West, a young couple with a baby, and the young mother's father, strive to meet the challenges of their livelihood, social evolution, and personal problems.