BOUND FOR SAMOA

New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 364, 14 June 1946, Page 12

BOUND FOR SAMOA

Sister -in -law Secretary for Robert Gibbings

HE wharf-shed was packed with husbands from various parts of New Zealand. They waited impatiently for the Rangitata to berth and to meet their wives from England again. A speech by an Army officer helped ‘to fill in time. He gave instructions about refreshments and transport, and general hints on how to help the disembarkation move smoothly and quickly. We were among the husbands, but not looking for a wife. The object of cur visit was an interview with a passenger, Patience Empson, a woman we had never seen, nor even her photograph. With a little timely help from the Internal Affairs Department, we found her and, instead of a hurried interview on the ship, it was arranged that we should have a talk with the sister-in-law of Robert Gibbings, author, artist, publisher and traveller, at her hotel that afternoon. Miss Empson, who comes from Oxford, was dressed in tweeds. She offered us an English cigarette and a light, and her first remark was that she was not at all used to being interviewed by reporters. And what on earth she could have to say that would interest The Listener, she simply couldn’t imagine. And that photographer who had taken her photograph in the morning, was he from our office? He was. She hoped it would be all right, because she wasn’t a a bit photogenic, she said. — We can describe Miss Empson best by saying that our disparagement of her last remark was not merely conventional. Our introduction to her was supported by a copy of The Listener of October 12 last year, containing an interview with Robert Gibbings, and with his photograph on the cover. "Yes, I’ve seen the article," she said. "Tt was a very good one. And the face on the cover-well, you can’t mistake that, can you?" New Book on \ Semon * It was really about Robert Gibbings that we interviewed her, for she has come to this part of the world, for the first time, to help him in the writing of his new book on Samoa. Gibbings, a very

busy man, needed a secretary and so offered her the post. But, we gathered, she will be more than a secretary, for part of her job will be doing research work for him. In fact, she started not long after leaving the ship by calling at the Turnbull Library. The next day Miss Empson left for Auckland and later for Samoa. She will be with her brother-in-law for about six months. Then both will return to New Zealand to collect further material from the Turnbull Library. Mr. Gibbings had her help on his last two books, Lovely is the Lee and Coming Down the Wye. "And I am overwhelmed with delight at the prospect of working with him again," she said.

We asked her if she could give us some idea of the substance and style of the new book, and perhaps the title. No, she could not say very much about that except that it would necessarily be very different from the stories on the Lee and Wye which were mostly about rivers; so, of course, is his Sweet Thames Run Softly. Seascape, landscape and people of Samoa would obviously require different treatment. "Yes, fish would be in it,’ she replied to another question, but when asked if she intended ,to don a helmet dnd join Mr. Gibbings in under-water painting, she said she had not gone in for that yet. "Still, who knows? I think it would be rather fun." For the last five years she has been busy, working in a surgical unit attached to a hospital at Oxford. That job ended with the close of the war and she snapped up her brother-in-laws offer immediately. We asked Miss Empson to remember us when she returns from Samoa, suggesting that there would be matter for a much longer interview. "Oh yes," she said. "We will probably have a lot more to tell you and I am sure you will be seeing both of us." We did not bother her with the popular question about her impressions of Wellington. She had been here only seven hours. But we asked another which readers seem to expect an answer. Apart from her research work, had she any special leisure-time enthusiasm? And the answer was music. She didn’t play a single instrument, but she loved to listen to others.

E.R.

B.