SHAW ANNOYED

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 30, 28 September 1931, Page 5

SHAW ANNOYED

FAMOUS NOVELIST WRITES SCATHING LETTER TO BOROUGH COUNCIL. etna, vesuvius, anp hell. london, Sept. 1. A letter from Mr. G. B. Shaw, who complains of the Wheathampstead refuse dump in the vicinity of his Hertfordshire home at Ayot St. Lawrence, came before St. Albans Rural Council recently. Mr. Shaw's letter deals with one from the Islington Borougji Council, the authority responsible for the dump, challenging the accuracy of his statements in complaint of the dump which came before the preceding meeting of the rural council. Mr. Shaw states: — "As the Cleansing Committee (of the

Islington Borough Council) wishes me to be informed that my accuracy is doubted, may I assure its members that I do not for a moment question their statement that they visited the dump and were very well satisfied with the general arrangements carried out by the contractors. In this view they f aithfully represent all the inhabitants of Islington, who, thanks to those arrangements, have got rid of their refuse by dumping it on the unfortunate inhabitants of Wheathampstead and its environs. I cannot imagine a more natural and obvious conclusion; and I hope the members of the Cleansing Committee had a delightful day on the dump and that the satisfactory arrangements included adequate refreshments on the spot. "But they are quite mistaken in supposing that my letter was written in the interests of merry Islington. Why should it have been? I do not live in that famous borough. Its smells and its flies do not torment me. The perfect satisfaction of its cleansing superintendent and medical officer is no satisfaction to me. The Wheathampstead dump is 20 miles north of Islington; and at that distance its fragrance is lost. It is about a mile south of my house; and when the wind is in that quarter I am not reminded of Shakespeare's 'Sweet south that breathes upon a bank of violets'; I am reminded of Stromboli, of Etna, of Vesuvius, and of hell. My famous neighbour, Mr.

Cherry-Gerrard, sole survivor of 'the worst journey in the world,' after the horrors of which one would suppose that no discomfort possible in these latitudes could seem to him worth mentioning, has written a letter implying plainly that there is little to choose between mid-winter at the South Pole and mid-sunimer at Lamer Park when the dump is in eruption. The inhabitants of Wheathampstead are seriously contemplating emigration en masse to Islington, where they can throw tliemselves on the rates until they have settled down as regular contrihutors'to the old dump. Our medical officer of health, far from being 'perfectly satisfied that no nuisance is being caused,' is perfectly satisfied of the coritrary." A copy of the letter is to be sent to the Islington Borough Council.