RURAL ENGLAND

Hokitika Guardian, 7 May 1927, Page 4

RURAL ENGLAND

MR BALDWIN ON WORCESTER. The Prime Minister was the guest of the Worcestershire Association. ol which he is president, at its inaugural dinner recently, and a basket of six black pears at Worcester was presented to Mrs Baldwin. 'I lie chairman explained that this species was known to date hack to 1 070 when Queen Elizabeth paid a visit to Worcester and three pears of this variety fell off a tree into her carriage. It was traditionally reported that the inclusion of three pears in the coat of arms of the city was due to this incident. The health of Air Baldwin was proposed by the chairman, who said this was the first opportunity Worcestershire people laid had collectively of expressing their admiration of the Prime [Minister, a native of their own county, and the county's first Prime Minister.

Mr Baldwin, in reply, said he had not thought it was necessary to tell anyone about Worcestershire until lie was in conversation with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, a man of wide culture and generous sympathies—(laughter)—who observed that all lie knew about Worcestershire was that it produced sauce. (Laughter). He was evidently unaware of the fact that, long before he was born, Hardicanute sent his taxgatherers to Worcester, where tliev murdered them.

Worcester to-day might not in some ways play the part she did, hut for centuries she was on the lines of communication. both in trade and war, with Wales, and owing to that fact she was visited by armies and kings throughout the later Middle Ages more than any other town of her size in England. Long ages ago they brought King John to Worcester, and in clouds of wax candles and incense laid him to rest by the high altar there. a stranger to Wprcester, but buried by his own desire where he might pluck

at the skirts of a Worcester man, in the only hope he had of ever getting to paradise. “PIERS PLOWMAN” ANI) “COMUS.”

Before his name was forgotten, Simon de Montfprt and bis army marched’ across Sir Francis Davies’s

land— (laughter)—and laid down their lives in defence of a great principle. Little more than a generation after that a very different man, John. Langland, lay on the slopes of the Malvern Hills, looking over that vast expanse of forest, and wrote “Piers Plowman, and so handed down the ages in contradistinction to Froissart’s history ot the chivalry of that age, the history of the common people. Little more than a century after that, on the field of Tewkesbury, on y just outside their borders, the cleat 1kncll of the Plantagenet nobility was sounded, the old age came to a close, and a new dawn rose upon England. Alter mentioning the journey of t ic two little boys from Ludlow Castle to London, at the invitation of their Uncle Richard, and to the burying ot Prince Arthur in Worcester Cnthcdia -

he spoke of the first performance ot ‘‘Conius” in Ludlow Castle nearly J L years ago. He said he often thought that Milton himself’ must have passed through Were Forest from the description he gave. Before those who took part ill Uuu masque had passed away the fire <>l civil war ran across the country, and Worcester was the first city which declared openly for the King. The battle was fought there, and the stragglers of the beaten army trailed across through Ombersley and Harilobury and the people at Ecwdley came out and watched the remains of that army in flight towards Staffordshire at the time when Charles went to Boseobel and hid in the oak. After that there was peace in their laud, in the 18th century they entered upon most comfortable, happy and peacelul times. Again .in that period what character was better known and loved than Sir Roger de Coverlet. a Worcestershire limn:- (Laughter). fie was unquestionably the first gentleman of his age. as the eoiiiily possessed the first genl lemon to-day in Lord Coventry. i id; unchanging Severn. lie liked to think that through the centuries, though much had (hanged, ill s one parts little had changed, 'there Pad abided through all time two feature.- the Forest ol Were and the Severn Valley. Nothing had altered that and nothing could. In the valley no plough had ever been. From the earliest times men had tended there their cattle and sheep, and that swift turbid stream had rolled on from the beginning of History, beautiful hut treacherous to strangers. let to those who had been horn in that valley, whose people had lived in if and who hoped to die in it, that rive:' represented the heart and the core

of all that they loved. It was an unchanging countryside. There was a field near his home, more than a mile long, curving through woods down to the river, which he never entered without feeling lie had stepped hack into the days of Chaucer, and it would not surprise him to meet his pilgrims a'.nhljng on their palfreys over the green-sward. To those of them i: exile the thoughts oi Worcestershire in spring plucked at their hearts. Where did they find in Loudon the verdure of the Worcestershire gardens. the blossom of the Rersimre plums and tP. cherry orchards; where could they smell the hopyards in the autumn f ‘Tn London,” Mr Badlwin added.

”1 am Fat a bird of passage. 1 own no house; I am not a tenant, f live in a house from which I can he ejected any day without notice and without compensation. (Laughter). When 1 look out of my window ] see nothing hut the Horse Guards Parade, which reminds me the general strike; ill

Foreig 1 Office which reminds me of M (.'hen; the India Office, which reminds j.-rd Birkenhead and the Swnrap-: the War Office ami Admire,.ly

whit ’.i reminds me of the Estimates(lnughter)—and then 1 think r.f wha I can see from mv own garden, t'< most beautiful view in idl England.’ ((fiicers).

What. Mr Baldwin continued, should lie say of their own people, steadiest and loyal, silent among strangers? They are suspicious among .strangers. They did not contradict people; they wore not litigious, and when lolks talked about the garden of England being in Kent they never said anything. (Laughter). There was no need, because they knew there was but one garden of England, and thank (iml, l hey lived in it. Because they Here mu communicative, people sometimes thought they were stupidbut they made a great mistake. They were gifted with apt speech among themselves. A TRAGEDY OF PROGRESS. One of the tragedies of progress to him was the way in which apt and racy speech, redolent ol old England, is disappearing under the process of what, for want of a better name, they called education. There was nothing more remarkable than the amazing gift of the people of England to express themselves, until they were taught to speak in a jargon that expressed nothing. One day, on one of his walks in Wyro Forest, lie met an old woman who accosted him with this salutation —a salutation which sounded to him Elizabethan, and one he delicti any modern educationist to improve upon : “May God, good will, and good neighbourhood he your company. ’ Ihiuk what education could do to that! Those of them who are wealthy could send their sons to expensive private schools for four years, then perhaps for five or six years to Eton and could finish them with four years at Christ Church. Did they think their son would say that to them? No. lie would probably say, “Pip pip. tooraloo.” (Laughter). For literature he took bis stand everywhere by the side of the illiterate and he said to all of them. “May God. good will and (rood neighbourhood be your company. ’ (Cheers). (London “Times,” Feh. 22.)