Early in the Morning

New Zealand Listener, Volume 6, Issue 145, 2 April 1942, Page 3

Early in the Morning

post ‘an urgent letter at two or three ~ in the’ morning. You'll have to walk down to the Strand to do it. It’s the only all-night Post Office. Walk therein the cool air of just before dawnsay, two oclock summer-time. Post -your letter — drink

a coffee at a coffeestall or a "cabman’s rest" — and do a bit of a wander round, say, Covent Garden Market, There will be a great bustle of coming and going at that early hour.

Waggons are topped high with produce. Their drivers fling rustic phrases at one anotherdialects from most counties of England. You won’t be able to understand a word of ’em. They’ll be as uninterpretable as a foreign tongue. But they’ll be merry. It’s a good end of a strenuous toil for them. They’ve harvested, sorted, packed and stacked, and brought their goods to market. Their carts are empty. Their horses thrust grateful noses. deep into nosebags. There’s a curious reek of fruit and vegetables, petrol, horse-dung, and sweat. I wonder if they'll like you? The peasants-in every country of the world-the Cockney-and every animal I ever knew-especially dogs-have an uncanny, and often embarrassing instinct for knowing what’s what in human beings. The Cockney will know ~he’ll know without so much as a ‘glance-whether you’re there to pry.("My London," Alison Grant Robinson, 2YA, March 18.)