HAPPY CITY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 209, 5 September 1938, Page 7

HAPPY CITY.

ROVER'S HAVEN.

VISITOR ON AUCKLAND.

KAN PLAYED MAKT PARTS.

•After the insecurity and strain of European cities, Auckland appeals to me ai a haven of refuge, with its pleasant shops and streets and the people's general air of contentment. This is my first visit to New Zealand, and Auckland strikes me as a clean and happy city."

This tribute, explained the man who offered it, came from one who had wandered far on the face of the earth, East and West, as sailor, teacher, journalist, actor, camera-man and wireless operator. A short, etocky man of middle age, Mr. A. E. Barrington informed an interviewer in quiet, convincing voice, that he wae no wandering Jew or restless Scot, whose foot had ■lipped from his native heath, but just an Englishman with an active mind and the luck of several unsettled occupation*, which had taken him round the world in many days and a variety of waye. He had a scrap and picture book to support much of his past history. After life with his parents in the East, he served in the navy during the war, got m touch with the film business in England later as super and cameraman, with interludes of stage work assisting to produce Japanese plays where his Eastern knowledge was an asset, and other interludes abroad with the camera on travel pictures. One of the latter developed into his capitalising his early knowledge of the Japanese language by teaching English in schools of northern Japan. Returned to London,.he even had a shot at producing a travel film of hie own which was still on its rounds.. One of his tangential ventures landed him on the London "Times" staff when Lord Northcliffe instituted a radio receiving •*t \n connection with the journal, thue adding wireless operation to his accoin-< fUshments.

Films to Phosphate Ship. Mostly, however, his heart was in film production, and finding that the industry at the moment was generally prostrated, he decided that a fresh peep at the world was indicated. So he capitalised on his wireless operator's ticket, folded up his camera, and stole silently away as "Sparks" in the Springbank, bound for Auckland, via New York, Philladelphia, the west and east coasts of Africa, Colombo, Calcutta, through the Magellan Strait to Peru, and Nauru Island. So this was Auckland; and he liked it. It was his philosophy, he said, tp take people as he found them; not after the manner of the woman who attended a certain party's political meeting and then went home and- isolated herself because someone had told her they were a measly lot in that party. His experience was- that people were much the same the world over, with everyone having much the same proportion of good and bad, and all seemed to be trying honestly to solve their troubles according to their' lights. He was interested in unusual angles of thought, but was not prepared to say they were wrong just because they were strange to him. . Birth of a Dominion.

Then his philosophy lapsed under the urge of hie camera-consciousness. Why iflidn't we have a film story of New Zealand? he asked. He had never seen the Maoris and their picturesque garb and dances in anything but newsreol* Why not a full picture ? Surely with the great setting of this country there was the story ... the saga of the Maori odysseys across the Pacific in their canoes . . . voyages of Tasman, Cook and 'other early explorers . . . arrival of the whalers and early settlers Maqri ware . . . life of the pioneers growth of towns and primary induetriee, and eo on. Resemblances between the Japanese ton<»ue and the Maori language which he had heard when the ship was at New Plymouth had struck him as curious, nrobably dating back to the beginnings !of the Maori race before the voyage to New Zealand. Pictures and Propaganda. Mention of Japan prompted the remark that Japan had the first talking pictures in the world, the voices being the human voices of persons behind the screen carrying on the dialogue as the figures appeared on th» silent screen, fie added that there were more picture

shows in Japan to the square inch than were to be found m any other country, and they were ueed largely for propaganda of an intense nationalism and military spirit, which was considered a supreme virtue.

Incidentally, Mr. Barrington revealed J that his beloved camera had been kept in constant practice during the voyage of the Springbank by references to some [interesting and unusual subjects he had come across in Peru, and to the fre'quency with which nuggete appeared in the hands of ragged and apparently poverty-stricken natives, indicating existing knowledge of the fabled "lost" I gold mines or caches of the Incas, which knowledge was used only in dire extremity.

i Oh, well, he had a pleasant berth just now on the ship, with jolly and congenial companions. No doubt they thought he drew the long bow a bit when he spoke of the film idols he had met on the eet, not realising that there they were just men and women all doing a job of work together, without time for j being exclusive.

"Anyway, I do think your Auckland is a clean and happy city," he concluded. "And that's no hooey." Which goes to show that you can't be yanked into film work without getting a Yankee touch.