“MARCH OF TIME”

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 December 1940, Page 9

“MARCH OF TIME”

PERSONALITY BEHIND VOICE. WRAPPED UP IN WORK. \ The warning, ringing voice which for 10 years has been saying, “Time . . . . Marches On!” belongs to a slight, energetic young man whose name is Westbrook van Noorthie, Junr—Van for short. The “Voice of Time,” who has catalogued every major event in history since he first reported for the March of Time on the air in 1930 until his latest job in the film, “The Ramparts We .Watch,” is a little resentful of his fate. "Everyone has the . right to be an escapist,” he claims. ”If things get too tough they can go out and grow a head of lettuce. Soon, the phenomenon of growing things makes them forget. "But if I tended a head of .lettuce, it would no sooner have its noggin stuck out of the earth than I’d start tracing history for it. Then it would turn right around and grow downward to get away from the reality of it all.” Van doesn’t know why he should be so wrapped up in his work. “My mother is a quiet little woman who loves to talk about gnomes and fairies. I should be like Ferdinand and sit under a cork tree and smell the. flowers.”

“The Rampants We Watch” recreates the years on the first World War, and incorporates the German Documentary “Baptism of Fire,” which was captured by the British authorities at Bermuda.