Passing Pageant

Radio Record, Volume XII, Issue 31, 13 January 1939, Page 12

Passing

Pageant

by

Trevor

Lane

water properly this time. Tn my mail the other day was a letter, limp and sightly damp from havying fallen with the flymg boat, Calpurnia, into Darwin harbour.. It was from the publicity manager in London for the famous Lyons’s restaurants, W. Buechanan-Taylor ... and it calls me a lot of names, ‘‘sob-brother’? and snob amons them. | "VE got myself into hot

And it ‘all arose out of my mention in PASSING PAGEANT some weeks ago of the life of the under-dog in London, especially the wages paid. to waiters in the big West End restaurants. "y OU have chosen a ‘sobbrother’ theme for your

article,’’ writes Mr. Bucha-nan-Taylor,’’ and apparently have pursued it regardless of accuracy. ‘"‘You refer to the wages paid, but omit the fact that meals are provided free and commission is also earned. "Just snobbery-and cheap at that! I suppose that the rich are always wellmannered and generous? You should know that geod manners and consideration are qualities to be found in the Man-in-the-Street and his wife as much as among the publicised socialites you seem to admire.’’ .

PEAR Mr. Buchanan-Taylor. .. In your zeal to uphold a firm that DOES pay its waiters twenty-eight shillings a week and DID show a profit of more than a million pounds last year you sponsor the very point that I made myself. I think I said im the selfsame article, ‘‘Good manners matter, and politeness to the under-dog, and a helping hand to the man who’s down and a smile and a word to the people who serve and sweat for a few shillings a week."’ And as for the ‘‘publicised socialites I seem to admire,"’ | God knows, I think FI pity them. How very bored they are and-sometimes-how very shoddy they are! * NO: when I tackled the question of England’s. ‘‘suhmerged tenth’? I did knew what I was talking about. The idea of writing about these people whose lives hover perilously uear the bread-line came to me whe I talked to the brother of my landlady in London. He had heen given a deeent Scots unbringing, had gone to London, had failed to find a, foothold and, at fortyfive, was a waiter in a West End restaurant. (Not a

Lyons establishment in this: case.) He was the very essence of the decent little man who hes had bitterness flayed inte his soul. The manager of his restaurant was a hard Italian with as much sympathy for his men as a snake has for a rabbit. He worked them long hours, took a peresntage of their tips from them, made them pay for damage to china and linen. * Wey , the lift attendant in the building in which I work

in Wellington was once 4 waiter‘in a London restaurant. And he read my article and agreed with me. He has known, too, what it means to wrest a living from the eating houses of the world’s biggest city. I don’t think these slaves will go on like this for ever, though. I hope, they won't. That doesn’ mean I’m licking my lips over the possibility of a bloody revolution with titled heads rolling all over Pieeadilly Cirens and bank directors swinging from. gibbets in the Strand!

But I think the Old Country és vipe for «@ bloodless revolution, an emenicipation, an advance toward the suirlight of better social conditrons. . New Zealand hes done tiand New Zealand is a very little country with a lot of nineteenth-century conservates. Because many an Englishman’s home ts @ miserable, sooty place he spends his time in the pub-and his wife does, too, while the children play in the gutters and acquire all the meannesses of guiter rats.

Here in New Zealand our children have the bright eyes and the happy laugh of the child who knows neither Paseism- nor Communism, poverty or war. May our little country bang remain im this happy state! unpopular the other day-yes, more trouble!-when I said that I thought most of the girls I know have more guts than the men. . Girls to-day say, ‘‘T’n going to do this," or ‘I’m going to do that’’-and jolly well go out and do it! But the majority of young men spend a lot of time talking about what they are going te do-and then very seldom make a move. Rather like the man who boasted that. he had said what he thought of the boss. ‘And what did the boss say?’’ his friend asked. ‘‘Well, he didn’t hear,’ was the reply. ‘"You see, | MADE myself rather

he was about a hundred yards farther down the street."’ . T#= other day I lunched with one of Wellington’s most decorative girls. For the jast year or two she’s been lending her sleek, wellgroomed presence to lots of cocktail parties. We found ourselves talking very seriously. She told me that Wellington’s parties are going to see a lot less of her in 1939. She’s going to study French and psychology. She’s going to equip herself to really talk and discuss things with people. She wants to be able to SAY something, rather than just throw a bright wiiticism into a group of sherry-drinkers. _. « A) THERE are other girls who . have got out and made the grade... . Lola Kelly. who, in less than a year, made the slippery slope to success in Australian radio; Elaine Hamill who, four years ago, had never played on a stage in her life, but who is now in demand in the: London theatre; Ann

Farey, of Wellington. who liked flowers and who is now entrusted with the job of decorating the rooms at BuckIngham Palace; Jean Carter, of Melbourne, who went to London, walked into Impcrial Airways, put over her best piece of personality, and is now one of the heads of their publicity department; Molly Turner-Shaw, whose aspirations led -her from school in. Melbourne to an architectual collaboration on one of London’s biggest office buildings. Lots more of them .. . they did more than talk and dream ; ey got out and took life in oth hands. PM quite convinced that more people are thinking oftener and harder than ever before in the world’s history. Perhaps that doesn’t apply to the Fascist States where the mass mind and mass psychology are so fashionable just ‘now. But it does apply in ‘democratic countries where our personal safety and our personal well-being are: shaken at every turn. The other day a chance remark of mine unearthed a thinker. We had been discussing ghosts. ‘‘Of course, it’s silly,’’ said someone. "‘There’s no such thing.’’

‘*Oh, yes there is,’’ I said, rather more seriously than I had intended. A few minutes later someone came up to me. "*I was glad to hear you say that,’’ he said. ‘‘If you don’t believe in ghosts. and things like that your life is reduced to the happy state of a cabbage."’ * §° we had a long talkseveral long talks, in fact-and I feel I have made a friend. I was reminded of that remark about people’s souls-some have souls with firm, even floors, while others have souls with trap-doors that go down to unsuspected and sometimes frightening depths. He told me that he liked walking across the hills alone with the wind singing its song of solitude through the long grass; he said he’d like to mix with brilliant people, not talking, perhaps, but just listening and learning. Instead, his job brought him into contact with homely farmers, and he wondered why they liked him, why he was 2 success with them, The answer to that was easy. It was because he had

a fundamental wunderstanding, a sympathy that they, in their close contact with the soil amd its fruits, could appreciate. "VLL do it somelowand I won’t regret a moment of it.’’ : Those were the -words Erica Blamires used to me in this very room when

she told me of her proposed trip round the world, and I asked her what she was going to use for money. . Erica-she’s a cousin of the musical Betty and Vivienne Blamires-left New Zealand with plenty of personality, a not-very-large wardrobe, some letters of introduction and a

third-class ticket to Vancouver. This ticket caused her a little trouble, for the shipping office looked at her very suspiciously and hinted that any girl who wanted to travel third

class on that particular ship mightn’t be ‘quite nice." . Erica that she was travelling third for the good reason that she couldn’t afford to travel any other way. HE dropped, me a line the ~ other day from Canada. _ -She had just left the radio studios in Vaneouver where the now-famous ‘‘Northern Messenger’? programime had gone’ over the air. Before Christmas cach year the friends and relations of people who are snowed in for the winter in Alaska and the Arctic Circle broadcast greetings and words of cheer. ‘You ean just imagine what it means to these folk in their tiny cabins among the ice and snow to hear the voices of the people they love! The first tune that Hrica -Blamires heard was a good old Irish song for Paddy Hamilton, who has charge of the most northerly post office in the ~world,, Paddy.was celebrating his birthday two days after the broadcast and this song about rin probably meant more to him than all the birthday presents in the world. a is often very pathetic and heart-rending to listen to these programmes,’’ Erica writes. ‘‘There was 2

poor old lady on the verge of tears broadcasting to her son whom she hadn’t seen for many along day. That message that went up to the Arctic Circle was a broken ery from the heart of a lonsly mother. There was a little

girl, too, who sent the most pathetic message to her father.’’ « FRICA ‘BLAMIRES has been most impressed with the people she has met in Canada. ‘‘They impress me as solidly British, genuinely keen and enthusiastic in building up the best possible foundation for their nation. ‘‘They are filled with a quict and justifiable pride in the beauty of their country, yet hesitate to express this feeling for fear of emulating their neighbours across the border. Living in such close proximity to the Americans they are fully conscious of the dangers of imitation and their aim is to develop a distinct character for themseives.’’