Fabian Frolics
ECAUSE the writings of many of the Fabians are so humourless, one comes to think of them as earnest, solemn inheritors of the dourer qualities of Nonconformism. But how different was the picture painted by Gertrude Hutchinson: in her delightful BBC feature, The Fabians and I. As a perky child of 14 (engagingly impersonated by Denise Briar) Mrs Hutchinson went to work, first as messenger, then as office girl, for the Fabians. And she found them, if an odd lot, also kindly, considerate people who had not, at least at this stage, allowed humanitarian theory to swamp their awareness of individuals. Beatrice Webb insisting that Gertrude should continue to attend school, Sidney Webb consulting his watch in botheration like the White Rabbit, a Fabian escort of eight taking Gertrude to see her first ballet, Bernard Shaw casuistically defending his predictions on the Dempsey-Carpentier fight, H. G. Wells in a tantrum-these recollections, presented with clear-eyed affection, made the Fabians more likeable and human than they have ap-
peared before. Most memorable of all was the description of these political theorists around a piano _ roaring "T-T-T-Trotsky. . . When the m-moon shines on the K-Kremlin"’.to the tune of "K-K-K-Katy." Fabian frolics, indeed.
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 922, 12 April 1957, Page 25
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200Fabian Frolics New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 922, 12 April 1957, Page 25
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