"People is the Craziest Monkeys..."

New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 815, 11 March 1955, Page 25

"People is the Craziest Monkeys..."

EW LEHR’S comment is echoed by ‘ Peter Harcourt, a New Zealander who has recently come home after several years in England as a writer. In one of his series of talks Not in the Guidebook, which will be heard shortly from 2ZB, 1XH and 3ZB Women’s Session, Peter Harcourt talks about the strange characters of London, among them Prince Monolulu, the African bookie, who always wears feathers and a robe, and the little gaudily-dressed Chinaman who carries a parasol tied to his head. Then he tells of the odd occasion when he overheard some old Cornishmen talking in a pub. They were solemnly discussing the trip one of them was going to make-to England. This man was admitted by the others to be much-travelled. He had meade the same journey, into Devon (some thirty miles away) before the Kaiser’s War, and in that village this made him an outstanding personality. Peter Harcourt found London itself a fascinating city. On his very first morn-

ing there he looked out of bis window which overlooked a bomb-site. Everything of value had been stripped from the devastated buildings, but a looter had just sneaked in. A policeman had seen him, and for a quarter of an hour the New Zealander watched the police manoeuvres to outwit the thief. Just as the man reached the last wall before the open streets a police car swept round the corner, pulled up silently and the thief clambered painfully over the wall right into the arms of a waiting constable. Then there’s the story of the young man taking his girl out in the days of horse-drawn buses, She knew nothing of London; he knew little but tried to impress greatly nevertheless. Under his guidance the Law Courts became the Old Bailey, St. Paul’s Westminster Abbey and so on. When they drove round the Victoria Memorial he was stuck. She gazed at him expectantly but he had to admit deféat, whereat the long-suffering driver just in front turned round and said: "Ah now, guv’nor, why don’t you tell ‘er it’s Marie Lloyd?" Peter Harcourt’s six talks about people and piaces which are Not in the Guidebook will begin from the 2ZB Women’s Session on Tuesday, March 8, from 1XH on March 23 and from 3ZB on April 18.