RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30979, 8 February 1966, Page 30

RANDOM REMINDER

PEDAL PUSHER

If there is anything which means anything to a girl of 16, it is her dignity. She feels, about that age, that she is very nearly a woman of the world, that her childhood days have long gone, and that she must be treated with the deference due to the sort of exquisite creatures who may be seen in the fashion advertisements; Poise, chic, personality,— these are the terms in which she thinks. That is, if she has been allowed to escape from school. There’s not much use thinking about poise, chic and personality while making blotty errors in French grammar. But if a

girl has left school, and has come from the country to town to work, and is living in a flat with an aunt . . . The flat was an upstairs one, with a self-locking door and of course there was only one key for it And while our heroine was still abed one morning, her aunt left for a daylong visit to a relative. The girl thought she would clear the mail box. You never know, there might be an offer from Hollywood or something like that' in it. So she slipped on a raincoat over her pyjamas, the trousers of which she rolled up, and inevitably while she

was out the door slammed and she could not get in again. But her aunt had not long gone, and could be seen in the middle distance walking towards the nearest bus stop. It was a moment for immediate action. The girl hailed a woman cyclist, nearly dragged her off her machine, explained briefly and breathlessly the crisis, and set off pedalling at high speed down the footpath. Her pyjama trouser legs unrolled, and then . her raincoat opened and billowed madly in the wind. She won her race; but it was then she lost her dignity.