Miss BROWN'S SUNDAY MORNING

New Zealand Listener, Volume 1, Issue 9, 25 August 1939, Page 15

Miss BROWN'S SUNDAY MORNING

By

G. M.

Glanville

broke in on Miss Brown’s sleepy meditations. Not that Miss Brown had just awakened. A cup of tea and an apple had already apprised her inside organs that morning had begun in the world they only knew from such contributions. "Good morning everybody. This is 3YA-the time is two minutes past nine. After a cold night there is a coating of snow. No road reports have yet come to hand, but you are advised that the road from the Hill-top will not be passable for some hours." Miss Brown was not contemplating the Hill-top. She liked the voice of this Sunday morning announcer. His "Good morning" sounded so personal, and she felt sure that he was personally sorry for those who wanted to pursue their snowy way over the hill-top and couldn't. Miss Brown was in the sixties and alone. People said she lived such a busy life that she couldn’t be alone. Miss Brown knew better. "The Coldstream Guards playing selections from ‘The Gondoliers,’" said the pleasant voice which was her only company this morning. Miss Brown had often reflected that invisible company had its advantages, and hoped the grapes in her case were not sour. She now forgot everything but the insistent notes of the band and "The Gondoliers." Her mind slipped. A little theatre gone now: Young professionals: Their names were household words in New Zealand and Australia: " Roses White and Roses Red." A little dress circle-you didn’t sit in the pit in those days. What a beautiful band this is; you’d think it wanted to stir memories. Miss Brown’s mind now took a long flight. The mind can travel so much more quickly than the body. Golders Green! And its little theatre famous even among London’s great play-houses. That day she had seen -both the " Pirates" and "The Gondoliers." Such hard seats! Cheap ones. Sir Henry Lytton. So marvellous, she reflected, that his fellow actors had sung his Gilbert and Sullivan songs at his funeral so near that little theatre. Some people have such nice thoughts for others. " The time is now twelve minutes past nine," and the mind of Miss Brown winged its way back over twelve thousand miles of space. " Peter Dawson will sing ‘To-morrow is Another Day.’" Another day in the ’sixties! The singer’s beautiful voice brought tears to Miss Brown's eyes. There was a hazy consciousness in her mind of days mis-spent and opportunities wasted. It-wouldn’t bear thinking about. Surely someone had said "I am always sad when I hear sweet music." Ah, yes, it was Lorenzo of Shakespeare’s great understanding. "The time is now 20 c (> xe morning Everybody,"

minutes past nine. Yesterday a grey Chevrolet car, model 1936, was missed between 2.30 p.m. and 5 p.m. Anyone knowing. . . ." The announcement was repeated with a little concern in the announcer’s voice. It was a record this time, "Where the Bee Sucks." The first notes drew from Miss Brown’s subconscious mind a disagreeable feeling. Oh, yes, many years ago at the Training College music examination it had been a test piece. What hard work it was in those days, large classes, night study, too much devotion to work. For what? The memories that Ariel’s little bee had brought had taken the listener far back into other days, so that... . It was now 9.30 and she had missed the announcer-no, he was repeating "O Sole Mio." That meant nothing to Miss Brown. Ah! Where had she last heard that impassioned call? Her mind went in a kind of enquiring maze. That was it! 7.30 in Leicester Square in 1931 on a Sunday-a queue round a lane waiting to hear Beaverbrook. A chilly autumn evening. Into the lane came one after another of London's flotsam, singing for the odd coppers of the tensely waiting crowd. It was a year of great depression and the election a few days off. What had Beaverbrook to say? A woman with a violin turned hesitantly into the lane. She might or might not be sober from her appearance. She took a few dancing steps -hat awry, pretty features ageing, and then such a torrent of impassioned music! The crowd forgot the crisis impending. A _ policeman. The woman pressed back against the wall, silent. He passed out at the other end of the Lane. "A Gentleman," said Miss Brown. "He must have known sie was there." A few dancing steps and the bow swept the string again. What had been her history? Miss Brown’s hand fingered sixpence in her pocket. She had to be careful-bur . .. the smiling eager face of the woman as she took it Miss Brown had for a memory. O Sole Mio! "The time is 18 minutes to ten," said the announcer. "Please take note that the road past the Hill-top is not negotiable for a few hours." "Passing "By" came over the air. Miss Brown dearly loved a man’s voice. "And yet I love her till I die." Miss Brown smiled a whimsical smile. "He did but see her passing by," she said: how much easier to have a dream than a reality. What were the words? Give me back the dear old River, Where I dreamed my life away, For a dreamer lives forever, And a toiler dies in a day. Well, well, it was ten o'clock. The snow was falling, so Miss Brown hoped that no one would go over the Hill-top to his doom. " You have been warned," she said. It had been a pleasant hour. If she could have spoken in she would have asked that Peter Dawson sing again "To-morrow Is Another Day." She shut off the cheery voice of the announcer. She must get to work,