TOURING THE BRITISH ISLES WITH THE ALL BLACKS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 236, 5 October 1935, Page 34 (Supplement)

TOURING THE BRITISH ISLES WITH THE ALL BLACKS.

LAST week we left the All Blacks at the old town of Coventry, in Warwickshire, right in the very middle of England, on the LondonMidland Scottish railway. Now we transfer to another company, the London and North-eastern, and travel up through the eastern plains of Eng-

land into Yorkshire, the largest of all the English counties. Much of this looks not unlike New Zealand, for large flocks of sheep dot the broad, rolling landscape. The All Blacks played their match against the men of Yorkshire and Cumberland at the old county town of York. The word "old” is just the right word to use; for few cities impress one with a sense of age in the way that this one does. As one leaves the railway station, one is greeted with a sight of the ancient city walls, which for many centuries guarded the town from invasion. Of course, the city has spread far beyond its former limits, but the Norman walls, creamy-grey in colour, tipped with battlements, and faced with a grassy moat, are carefully preserved, with here and there the old city gates still standing. There are relics, too, of the,, days when York was the Roman town of Eboracum, and many scraps of Roman pavement, and weapons, and household vessels, are preserved in one of the old abbeys. York is also a city of churches; but its chief pride is the Cathedral of St. Peter, better known as York Minster. This splendid old pile, with its three square towers, seems to

form the centre and chief feature of the city; and many a time the eyes of our footballers must have turned to it as they walked along the top of the old walls, or strolled down by the placid waters of the little river Ouse. Parts of York are still much as they were in the Middle Ages, with traces of Norman and Saxon buildings. And here and there are still quaint, narrow streets, with old timbered houses whose upper storeys lean out as if to touch each other across the thoroughfare. One could linger long in this quaint, old-world town; but we must hasten on our trail; for the All Blacks have long since left England and crossed to the other side of the island. Let us go back, then, to the Great Western system, passing once more close to Shakespeare’s county of Warwick, on through Gloucester, which would well repay a lengthy stay if we had only time, and into the

southern part of Soon we reach the thriving seaport of Newport, where ships are loading coal and tinware for all parts of the world. But we do not stop here.

Instead, we turn northward for a few miles towards the rugged hills of the centre of the country. The next match was against a team of players from the towns of Abertillery and Cross Keys. (Do you notice, again, the delightfully musical names? They sound like places oct of a fairy tale.) Abertillery, the actual scene of the contest, is a town of some thirty thousand people, and is a hive of industry. As we approach it, we see the pithead gear of many mines where eoal and tin are dug, and the stacks of the smelting works which seem to be belching out dense smoke to spoil the beauty of the countryside. Leaving Abertillery, we take the train again westward, through Cardiff and Bridgend to Swansea. Throughout the journey the scenes alternate between stretches of farm land with white-walled, thatched cottages, black, noisy towns with ugly piles of coal and metal. South Wales produces •one-fifth of the coal in the whole British Isles; so it is not surprising that when we reach Swansea we find another busy port, with trains bringing large loads of shining black nuggets. There are nuggets of other colours, too, for copper and other metals are also mined and smelted in and near the city. And yet not far away is country which is the very garden of Wales. It was at Swansea that the All Blacks met their first defeat at the hands of the hardy Welshmen, so it is with a feeling of wholesome respect that we turn our backs for the moment on the Western Principality, and turn our faces once more toward England.