O, TO BE IN ENGLAND
Sir,--May I suggest to Ronald Meek that it is the lop-sidedness of his values that is driving him from New Zealand? If he enjoyed a belly to laugh with as much as brains to think with he’d find plenty of scope-if restricted companyin New Zealand. Speaking for myself, after 20 years here, it isn’t English brains nor English culture that I miss, but English laughter. And this only of late years. Because fortunately for me my early days in this country were spent in Public Hospitals, where the English tradition of laughter has taken root and produced its own hilarious variety. And it isn’t likely to wilt-as I know to my cost-so long as English people with their queer English ways emigrate to take up posts in these hospitals, But now, to have a real good bellyshaker, I have mostly to wait till I meet some old hospital friend. In my opinion what’s wrong with us here is that we have so many brains to reform us and so little laughter to transform us. The more brains that export themselves the better. But if the owners of them can come back in due course with their belly muscles toned up, I for one will welcome them as just the people we want.
E. P.
DAWSON
(Tauranga).
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19460412.2.14.1
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 355, 12 April 1946, Page 5
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221O, TO BE IN ENGLAND New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 355, 12 April 1946, Page 5
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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