WHAT WE WOMEN THINK

Radio Record, Volume V, Issue 7, 29 August 1930, Page 32

WHAT WE WOMEN THINK

I HAVE read the play "Journey’s End." I have been enthralled by its presentation on the legitimate stage, and recently I visited the Regent Theatre in Wellington to see the film production of Mr. Sherriff’s remarkable and moving story of life in the trenches during the Great War, with its terrible eoncomitants of mud, physical exhaustion, privation, and hardship that would seem incredible were it not that our sons and brothers lived and died amid just such conditions. The picture is a fine and artistic ‘rendering by an excellent British east. Here is no war mongering; just a tale of men, some of them little more than boys, gallantly doing their duty and "sticking it. out," if need be, to the end. Nothing is extenuated, and certainly nought set down in malice by "Bob" Sherriff, much of the original play having been compiled from letters he wrote home to his moth‘er when he himself was in the fighting ‘zone. Here, one imagined, was something to make ‘youthful even the loud ebulliance of youth in this year of our Lord, and raise in older hearts reminiscent and sorrowful pride in the valour of our race. How did it affect that huge audience? It proved itself, in its own colloquial phrase, to be "tickled to death." After preliminary and audible chatting, much fidgeting and rustling, through the rousing music of old fighting tunes of more than a decade ago,

there was a contented settling down to what obviously was: regarded as an evening’s: hilarity.. It is true that in the play the comedy is excellent; but it is merely -a foil to the stark tragedy of that dreary. dugout, so near to the enemy line, with its darkly etched background of ominous sky flecked with crimson vapour, as an occasional shell shrieks its way through the deadly quiet. Here men move before us in cheery disregard of the horrible conditions; Raleigh, fresh from the playing ground of school; the beloved Osborne; officer and cockney; with their magnificent bluff and gaiety in the face of imminent extinction. How was it all received? The drollery of Mason and the inimitable Trotter was welcomed with shrieks of delight-I say it advisedlythe yelps and roars of mirth being ébviously checked with difficulty, and not always with success, when tense moments came that not even that particu-

lar audience could altogether ignore. I do not often visit picture theatres, and found myself wondering if the habitues thereof forget days and weeks and months when "we who are left" watched and waited for news of just such men as are depicted in the film, men who went through just such a hell in orders that others, "even as you and me," might live. Have they taught their children that lesson of epical self-~_-mnmnannnnanahac bn nb hb bs bbb

i _ i ndi iiian sacrifice, the heart-searching history of those who died for England? Apparently not. What is chiefly desirable, it would appear, is the hearty shriek of merriment when Trotter falls in the filthy sea of mud and Raleigh slips and slides while dodging verminous rats. All around me echoed unmusical indications of mirth, ranging through openmouthed screams, prolonged and spluttering giggles and loud bucolie guffaws, imperfectly suppressed, as the grim story moves to its close, only to break out again at the first suitable or unsuitable chance. "What a pig!’ quoth a_ portly, prosperous matron, as poor Stanhope’s nerves gave way before our eyes, she being oblivious to the fact that three years in the trenches against "fearful odds" of modern warfare might be apt to make cowards of us all without the supplement of the Dutch courage of alcohol. Uproarious laughter, shrill, foolish, inept comment ; these made the sum total of my impressions of the audience. Finally, the bare-

ly repressed spurts of laughter in and out of season made me gather together. my hat, my gloves, and my opinions x halfway through the programme, and mumuring, like. the elephant in the "Just-So" story, -"’This is too. much for me!" I left them to it. I could not. witness "Journey’s End" in such a com-

pany.

H.V.

L.

. > — APROPOS of spelling, a young girl friend of mine becarne engaged to a young man who, though he had a fair education, was a most atrocious speller.

I was staying with the young lady for a few days. She told me her people did not thing Jack half "cultured" enough for her, and she was in a great state because she had lost one of his letters, and did not want it to be found and Jack’s spelling to be eriticised. Then she burst out laughing, "Why, he called me a dear little ‘angle’ in it," -ghe said. "But," I pointed out, "I know none of your people would be so mean , as to read it if they did find it." "Ohyy’ I’m not afraid of that," she said. "I’m afraid some outsider might pick it up and send it to the museum, and they’ll

see it there!’’a

Becky

Hew many of us realise what a friend we have in ordinary putty? The time, for instunce, that Tommy had a sharp nail in his boot sole we didn’t notice it till he had gouged a hole in the most noticeable part of the new kitchen lino. Another time, ‘when, through illness, father acted as cook, he dropped the heavy fork on the porcelain top of the electric range. It left a spot, minus enamel. These wireless cabinets, too, the wood is generally so soft and easily-bruised. And the conerete floor of the back porch, there was a hole coming there. . . . A one-pound tin of putty (purchased at any hardware store) will rectify countless troubles other than those mentioned. I colour it any shade I wish paint-a smali tube of artists’ oil Colour in the required shade for anything special. For stained furniture I use walnut sapolin, and sometimes give a brush over with it when the putty is set in. Should the putty be too wet to use by the time it is dark enough, just put it on brown paper and leave a few days. The paper will absorb the surplus oil. Be sure to press the holes well full, excluding all air to make a good jobConstance.

BR BPP PPPLPPPPPPPLPPPL LL EE PRP LLLP PPL PPLE IE VERYBODY in Fleet Street knows that horse-racing is immeasurably the most interesting topjc to the generality of male Britons. } least nine out of every ten woul?’ rather read an article on Three-Year-Old Form by "Knowall of Newmarket" than anvthing bv Bernard

Shaw at "his brilliant: best.-

A.

P.

Garland in "Time and Tide."