COUNTRY WITHOUT HER

Radio Record, 20 May 1938, Page 33

COUNTRY WITHOUT HER

Beverley Nichols Discusses An Undisciplined Nation Led By _ Dreamers And Grandfathers

Special Review By

Trevor

Lane

USAN and Penelope, in dresses as yellow as the crocuses, were having the time of their five-year-old lives . . . their chubby legs flashed across the green grass. On the Serpentine was a boatload of boys, laughing and skylarking ..,. the boat wobbled... there was a splash, and a moment later a grinning, streaming face bobbed above the water... London's Hyde Park on this golden April afternoon was incredibly lovely, SO young in its tender foliage, so wise and restful in its century-old knowledge . . « Clattering a rhythm of spring on the road beside the lake came four horses drawing a shiny black carriage. The coachman sat up straight as a ramrod, his whip held at the right angle... and there, with her feathers dancing in the breeze, was a little old woman, a proud figure left over from a Victorian age of dignity and leisure... There was a low, angry hum in the alr now... over the tall towers that weave a skyline pattern along Park Lane came six silver bombing planes ... Six gleaming tokens of death... . Susan and Penelope were playing still, the laughter of the boys in the boat was drowned a little... only the little old woman in the carriage looked up and shuddered and drew the rug about her knees. She had seen ig all before... UT this was Hngland, and the sun was warm. I went back to my hook, and I didn’t like what I read there: "After all, it is a long time since the days of William the Conqueror, when we were last invaded. It is a long time, too, since the last war, when air-raids, compared with modern air-raids, were no more irritating than a swarm of flies. We do not realise that the whole history of the world might be changed in fortyeight honrs, and that we might sud-

denly ‘descend from our proud position as an Imperial race to a position akin to that of Holland, but a Holland with empty .coffers and a starving population." I looked up at the planes again. I tried to picture them, not as friendly British planes, but as an enemy, and not as six, but ag six hundred, raining death and horror and mutilation. I read on... "And now let ug visit one of the largest air-raid shelters in Hngland. . It is chill inside here in this great cave which stretches and stretches, through dark to greater dark, under the towering hills ... it grows increasingly cold... It certainly wants people in it, five thousand of them. Crouched together while the bombs thunder outside and the echoes of their falling roar like wind through the twisted caverns, Staring at each other tight-lipped, while the children scream. Wondering if their breathing is quite normal, wondering if the gas has got in. if there isn’t perhaps a cloud, just a faint yellow cloud, over the lamps." Not a pretty picture, but then the people who love their England have given up painting pretty pictures. To some, with the mentalities of certain town councillors, Hngland is still a oo fortress built by Nature for herself Against infection and the hand of wu, . The book I had was Beverley Nichols’s latest, "News of Wngland," and it rang so true that it made gloomy reading. England may still be "this precious stone set in the silver sea," but it is to-day the most vulnerable country in Europe, a fact not even partially realised by the average English citizen. T RBAD the chapters on war and defence with the greatest interest, for, since the Austrian conquest, the Government has been doing its best to arouse the nation to its danger. From every hoarding, from every loudspeaker, come appeals for preparedness,

The other night there was air-raid drill in Paddington. Street lights were put out, stretcher-bearerg and ambulances and firemen stood by. Sirens moaned, "bodies" were brought from basements, decontamination squads raced through darkened streets. In a restaurant the next evening I heard the activities discussed by two men. "Did you see the air-raid people rushing about in Paddington last night?" asked one. "Right in our street, too. We had a grandstand view of the whole thing .. . jolly good show, in fact." I have in front of me a pamphlet headed, "Air Raid Precautions-What You Can Do." It quotes a portion of the Home Secretary’s recent speech: "We want at least a million men and women, and we want them for work that, in an emergency, would be exacting and dangerous. The job is not an amusement in peace-time, nor would it be a soft job in time of war." The u«.R.P., as the organisation is known, is seeking recruits in every city and hamlet in Hngland. On the walls of ancient Chichester Cathedral the other day, I saw a huge poster, "Your Country Wants You-NOW!" ‘The A.R.P. wants air-raid wardens, firstaid parties, decontamination squads, ambulance drivers, rescue parties. I offered my services to the A.R.P., but was told that I was "too young." Only men over thirty are wanted. Qnaintbut true, RN GLAND, like Beverley Nichols, has ehanged considerably in the past ten years. "On the material side," writes Mr. Nichols, "we have the prospect of an undisciplined nation with a declining population in possession of an utterly’ unreasonable proportion ‘of the world’s riches. This nation, which (Continued over page),

is led by a committee of dreamers and zrandfathers (whose faltering steps are hampered by an irresponsible and ignorant opposition) finds itself confronted by new nations of immense strength, Jed by young and ruthless men, Whose fingers are itching to pick our pockets, "neland, it would appear, no longer enres abour England. With equanimity the majority of the population has witnessed the destruction of London, tud its transformation into the shodaiest capital in the world. With saugirold We tolerate slum conditions Whieh rhe anthoritarian States, with their empty treasuries, would not toler‘ese tor a inonth." Beverley Nichols feels, too, as every wiher decent man now feels about the Troaty of Versailles: "Those who did not know Germany in 19380, when utter Cespalir was written over the face of the Innd, when the body of every boy und girl was for sale for a piece of Hread, will never feel the sense of abiding shame and horror that we. in the adne of Gemocracy and peace, should have piased our part in the torture gang of Versailles. "We created Hitler, At the instigation of France, of conrse, in whose Cee +--- ane

erazy courses we have obediently followed since the war. We made the advent of Hitler not only inevitable but a part of the common justice of things. "God knows, we have got ourselves into such a mess that it will need a Divine Power to get us out of it. How. ever, there IS that Divine Power, and we might do a good deal worse than invoke its aid. It is too late for anything else." Not a cheerful picture, you say? No, but then it is asking a little much that we, as members of the greatest Empire the world has known, should sing and dance while the menaces from fiespotic States and power-mad dicrators grow daily more insistent. I’m sorry... I meant to write a lot more about Beverley Nichols’s book, which is better than most of his, but not as good as his best. He flays many . institutions-"Punch," Oxford (always easy prey), Civil aviation, London sgociety. le praises several things-the British ballet, the BBO and a dress designer hamed Norman Hartnell. You'll find "News of England" as wp-to-the-minute as the larest European crisis, ‘ "News of England,’ by Beverley Nichols (Jonathan Cape). Our copy from the publishers,