No Change

New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 468, 11 June 1948, Page 8

No Change

: A BBC production recently heard from 4YA was entitled The Old Order Changeth, and it dealt with the Cockney. "This was the Cockney,’ we wefe told

-and naturally I expected that the programme, as it proceeded, would feveal a vital and obvious change in Cockney chafacter and manners. This I really don’t think it did-and I imagine it is bécause ho feally vital change has occurred itt the Cockney himself over the period dealt with here. This véty fine

delineation of Cockney life dealt with the life of Mrs. Sands, whose story was chosen as typical. Immediately we were taken back to the London of the ‘nineties, and plunged into an environment of ovetctowded slums peopled with a face of ‘watni-heatted, faticotis, lovable folk. Mrs. Sands’s story might sefve as a typical exarhplé of courage and endurance, mingled with a cértain pathetic gaiety and charm difficult to describe, but appafent to anyone who heard the programme. The plain details of her life, the child happily playing it squalid surroundings, the early work and marriage, the children, the desertion of a worthless hiisband, and the gradual building up of a home atmosphere for her family by sheer hard work and de- © termination-only to have it all blitzed and to staft again and yet again with renewed vigour; such details could probably be duplicated many times in the stories of thousafids of others. But the basic character behind these details remained firm, throughout changing citcumstances, and proved the point that although the material suffoundings of ~ the Cockney may alter, the character of this typical Londoner hasn’t dofe so -and we hope will not do so, however much his living conditions may be altered for the better.