E. F. HISCOCKS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 7, Issue 159, 10 July 1942, Page 3

E. F. HISCOCKS

Sir.-Many months ago there appeared in The Listener an article dealing with cartoonists, in which it was stated that E. F. Hiscocks had gone to America. Previous to that a correspondent of mine had written, telling me of having met him in London, so I forwarded the article, and in response my correspondent (a fireman) now writes: "Hiscocks is a full-time rescue-party man. I met him at a fire, dragging at debris, to rescue the quick and the dead. Considering that he is over sixty and quite unused to manual labour, I think it mighty plucky of him. The driver of the big travelling crane on the job, who in civil life is an accountant, is also a New Zealand man, His name is Sexton and he comes from Dunedin. Both Hiscocks and Sexton are returning to New Zealand when the war is over. Hiscocks has been in England for some years, and ever since the war started has been a rescue and demolition man--one of the rottenest jobs in Civil Defence, and the worst paid. A man of his age is definitely entitled to a pat on the back for doing

such a job. I showed him the cutting from The Listener and he laughed. Then we drank respect to J. Liddell Kelly, whom Hiscocks knew, in a pub which J.L.K., as a poet, would have lovedthe Cheshire Cheese." The Listener writer may have been correct in his statement. What my correspondent says does not prove that Hiscocks did not go to America, and the fact that Hiscocks laughed at the statement does not say " Yes" or "No." The fact that he is now in London, doing a tough job of war work, is passed on for the benefit of Wellington people whose memories go back to the days when the 1914 War was a thine undreamed of.

CHAS S.

KELLY

(Stratford).