Capture Of Italian Dictator

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 99, 28 April 1945, Page 4

Capture Of Italian Dictator

wartime visiting Americans, and that it should be renamed Franklin Delano Roosevelt Square.

Latest from the bureaucracy front. A famous British scientist due to deliver a lecture was removed from a plane at the minute to make room for a staff colonel with a priority. The lecture was cancelled.

Then it transpired that the staff colonel was making the plane journey solely to attend the lecture.

Latest from the V-2 front. Says a Cockney bus conductor, "It's so quiet in London now you could hear a rocket drop."

Latest war contribution to the dictionary, here and in America, is "Stoopies"—the under-counter merchants, so called because when they condescend to sell you anything they have got to stoop down to produce it. Advice On a Career A woman has written to a London newspaper, "Can you recommend a profitable post-war career for my son? His father is in the black market, but does not want the boy in the racket, as he says the Government might relax its restrictions and knock the bottom out of the market."

The answer was: "We do not think there is too much danger of the Government relaxing anything. However, with all the post-war schemes for controlling and for card-indexing there will be a boom in the cardindex business.' ' "Pete" Sacked It ■ seems only yesterday that nation-wide campaigns were urging the populace to drink more milk and eat more fruit, whereas actually since the outbreak of war we have been told to eat less of everything except potatoes. Now we do not need to be told to eat less spuds—we cannot get them; The Minister of Food has just given his friend "Potato Pete" the sack. "Pete" was the chief character in a huge advertising campaign which urged everyone to eat more potatoes. This was so successful that people at twice as many potatoes as they did in peacetime, and saved bread. Pianists Boom A wartime development has been the boom in pianists. They have had a golden reign because foreign artists have been almost unobtainable, and Britain possesses few violinists, 'cellists or singers with large followings. Artists like Moiseiwitch, Myra Hess and Mark Hambourg have been able to do three piano concerts a week, or more if necessary, and the incomes of at least six leading pianists have averaged between- £GOOO and £9000 a year during the war. They say that Tschaikowsky's Number One- Concerto has. been played so-often that milkmen whistle the opening movement as they go on their rounds. Fine Play That brilliant young Welsh author, actor, manager and producer, Emlyn Williams —in some ways as versatile as Noel Coward —has, in "The Wind of Heaven," just given the West End the most important new plav of the year. Williams wrote it, produced it, and acts in it with exquisite Diana VVynyard as leading lady.

All critics agree that this play has greatness, and its emotional effects set the theatre tingling, though most of them consider that it does not sustain its quality throughout.

Williams takes a little village in the Welsh mountains at the end of the Crimean War for his story, which is about the coming of a Messiah, the little son of a Welsh peasant, who is given power to heal the sick, raise the dead and call sinners to repentance. First Casualty I suppose historians will take a decade or so to decide who was the first war casualty. They will be wasting time. Here is the absolutely authentic information. It happened right opposite this offce. and within our full sight. The caretaker of Ludsate House (Mr. Cox), accompanied by a policeman, saw a light showing through a fanlight on the September 3, 1939. He climbed on the policeman's shoulder, and grasped the fanlight. This broke away in his hands, and he fell back heavily on his head. He was taken to hospital. His [ wounds were stitched. He recovered consciousness, and resumed duty some days later. Mr. Cox is still caretaker of Lud- ! gate House. The fact that he was the first casualty of this war was entered on his attendance sheet. Mr. Churchill's Record Next month Mr. Churchill will chalk up another record. He will have been Prime Minister for five years of war. This has not been surpassed, or even equalled, for over 130 years.

Lord North, who was the last Prime Minister to compare with Mr. Churchill, held office from 1770 until 1752, through the whole seven years of the American War.