TO BUCKINGHAM PALACE AND BACK

New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 484, 1 October 1948, Page 6

TO BUCKINGHAM PALACE AND BACK

E did not interview J. W. Heenan when he returned from Buckingham Palace. We left him to the Prime Minister, to his family, to the daily newspapers. Then when we thought he had settled down, and that the crowded scenes and experiences of the last two months had fallen into some kind of order in his mind, we walked into his office and said this to him: "Apart from your mission, which we don’t ask you to discuss, what is the most vivid impression still in your mind after your first journey out of New Zealand?" He thought for a while, then answered: "The heat of New York, the immense size and silence of Canterbury Cathed.ral, the friendliness of the human race.’ So We Started on those three topics. When he said that New York was hot did he mean unpleasantly hot, or just hotter than he expected? "Something far worse than either of those. I thought I knew what humid heat was after Auckland. When I struck a heat-wave -in London I realised that I’d felt nothing at all in Auckland. But when the thermometer rose to 96 degrees in New York, I sighed for the’ comparative coolness of London. I

don’t know how to describe the heat of New York. It was not just unpleasant. It was melting and suffocating. I would go into a basement to escape. the heat outside, and begin to forget it. But when I returned to the street it was like walking into an oven. With the towering buildings on either side the streets were just deep canyons filled with burning air. It made me really ill." "Was it then you thought of Canterbury Cathedral, or did you feel its power when you first saw it?" "When I saw it-or rather, when Il entered. I’m not very religious, bu: something happened to me when I stood in the vast nave, walked on the ancient stones, and looked up at pillars and vaulted ceilings that had not changed for centuries." "You found nothing like it in America?" "Nothing of. the same kind. But 1 did find one haven of rest there. I went to lunch with a couple of newspaper men at the Union League’ Club, an old-estab-lished institution formed at. the time ot the Civil War. It is a very exclusive conservative affair, furnished soberly but in excellent taste. All the servants without exception were Negroes, but there was. an air almost of equality, and certainly of friendliness, between them and the club members. They had all beer

there for years. The charm of the place was the air of tranquillity about it-no noise, no bustle, not a sound from outside. It was the quietest place I struck in the whole of the United. States." "You must have found some quiet clubs in Britain, too?" "I did, but nothing quite like that place in New York. I was, of course, far too busy in London to look for such places or relax when I found them. I escaped once or twice with Robert Gibbings and Arthur Heighway among others, who knew exactly where to go to be quiet and to get good’ food at a reasonable price. But in general I was anchored to hotels." Loaves and Fishes "How abcut the ordinary British public? Did rationing seem to you to be making life miserable for them?"

"Well, I spent mos: of my time in the West End of London, where conditions would seem not to be very difficult. But I would not have got the impression anywhere that the people lacked nourishment. They looked well, by which J mean well fed, and they were always cheerful. But that wasn’t the whole tale. Thousands of them went out tc eat, and as long as they had money they did fairly well. Beef and mutton were certainly scarce-sometimes I went ¢ whole week without meat-but there was an abundance of good fish and, at hotels and restaurants, fowl. And there was one thing that filled me with delight as often as I saw it-real crusty bread. I used to love to crush the rolls in my hand just to hear them crackling. There were surprises in the fruit line too. I saw great quantiies of cherries and strawberries-the latter better than ours in colour, size, and flavour. The best of them. cost 3/6 a pound. Artists’ Haunts "Had you time to meet any of the artists and writers?" "No time at all by day, but I did once or twice attend lunches and dinner parties at which the guests all, belonged to that world. I was honoured myseli by a very pleasant dinner at ‘The Ivy’, a well-known eating haunt of writers, artists, and actors. Among the guests were Epstein, Michael Sadleir, Hannen Swaffer (looking like a long-haired bishop) C. K. Ogden, the basic: English exponent, Robert Gibbings, Martin Dent, the publisher, Richard Church, the poet, and several others. We talked of ‘books and men over very good food gand better wine, and if there’s a bet‘er way of discussing such things I don’t know what it is." : "You said that the friendliness of the human race had impressed you, Did that apply everywhere?"

"Nearly everywhere. You meet the other kind, too, of course. As for people in general, it astonished me to find how obliging they were, and how long some of them had remembered little courtesies I had occasionally been able tc show them in the past. I think I found the longest memories among the Americans. You would have thought it was seven days instead of seven years since most of them had been in New Zealand My*chief trouble was to get away from them to do some work." "You saw more of America than just New York?" "IT didn’t see nearly as much as 1 should have liked to see, but I saw enough to make me think. I’ve already spoken about the heat of New York. The size, noise, and speed made almost as lasting an impression. Half of tha visits I intended to make were quite impossible owing to the time it takes to get about. The traffic is so dense you are held up at every corner till the lights’ are clegr. This means that it takes half an hour to walk six blocks. Fortunately. there are 9,000 taxis in New York and they’re about the cheapest things ir America. In general I found the immensity of everything overwhelming, and even frightening, but the Empire State Building, though it is the tallest in the world, did not seem nearly sc high as I expected. It is higher than Tinakori Hill, and over twice the height of Mount Victoria, but somehow or other it does not impress .you as much as some of the smaller buildings. 1 thought the women of New York the best dressed I had ever'seen. The new look did not seem new on them, but something they’d been born to." (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) ‘Did you see any of the other eastern cities-Philadephia, for example?" "T spent a day and a night in Philadelphia, but I’m not going to say that I saw it.. I saw the Republican Convention, and when that was on it was impossible to see anything else. It happened that. my hotel was headquarters of the candidates for nomination, and it is difficult to explain what that meant and still be believed. I would. hardly believe it myself now if I’d not made some notes-14,000 people in the convention hall, shouting and waving flags and banners; bands playing and celebrity artists giving items whenever there was a hush or a_ pause; hundreds of reporters, photographers, and newsreel men; pandemonium after every nomination speech-all this going on hour after hour and making the maddest scene you could imagine. Some time after midnight I went back to my hotel and saw the rest by television. To my surprise it was all extremely clear.

Even the voices were far more distinct than in the hall itself." "Did you get any impression of the American countryside — farms and farmers and rural workers generally?" "No. I -‘travdlled by air, except between Washington and New York, and most of the long distance flying is done at night. I saw California in daylight, and Honolulu, but they are no more like the rest of America than Tauranga is like Taihape. ’Frisco seems to have no smoke day or night, and never to rest day or night. It looked to me like a city without dust or dirt, without weekday or Sunday, the traffic never still, the shops and hotels never closed. I saw nothing so sunny, so gay, so cheerful, and so efficient, except the hostesses on the planes whom no traveller ever forgets. It’s all very well to cultivate indifference to danger. ‘Everyone who flies has to do that. But nearly everyone, when a plane begins to bump, wonders why he left home-until he sees the airhostesses going on with their work quite unmoved. Then he pulls himself together and feels a little ashamed that his morale was escaping so fast."