LONDON LETTER MANY ATTRACTIONS IN CAPITAL OF BRITAIN,

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26528, 17 September 1951, Page 6

LONDON LETTER MANY ATTRACTIONS IN CAPITAL OF BRITAIN,

(From NZVILK WfBBKR. London Correspondent of “The Press.")

London, September A man is tired of London he is tired of life- for there is !n London all tnat life’ afford.” So wrote Dr. Johnson 200 years ago—and how right he suii 1S Take Wednesday, for example, a sultry, hazy, grey day“ day when energy saps away and spirits sag. Writing was intolerable, so I strolled off down the bustling Strand, past the fat friendly pigeons of Trafalgar Square, through the garish cine |?“ land of Leicester Square, round the giddy whirl of Piccadilly , C £F U ®: ®“ d into the elegant reach of St. James street, purring with its Rolls Royces and weH fed Vest Endlvoice. -Herel turned down a side street to the. OverSeas League and the fascinating exhibition of photography now being h The show piece of the is Jh® crude box camera invented by *ox Talbot in 1835, and the world s first photograph he took with it. It is a picture of the window of his home at Lacock Abbey—“the first building, I believe, that was e/er known to draw its own picture, as he wrote in nie diary at the time. Here is the camera obscura” he used, a type of drawing aid which first gave him the idea oi taking a photograph while he was on a sketching exhibition at Lake Como in is the latest camera marvel, which takes a photograph in a millionth of a second with an electronic flash. Other exhibits are' the first colour photograph ever madeof a tartan bow—taken in. 1861 by Professor James Maxwell; the first war news picture — ot the cannon balls littering the field after fhe charge of the Light Brigade in 1855; a tiny circular camera whose lens fits into a spy s waistcoat buttonhole; a lorgnette camera; a miniature box camera only half an inch long. . . . Out again and down the street past the scarlet-clad sentries and the whitewashed battlements of St. James Palace, where the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester live, over the Mall and into the loveliness of St. James Park, brilliant with flowers. The waterfowl crowd thick on the lake, paddling almost to the foot of Buckingham Palace itself. . . . . And so to Caxton Hall, registry wedding rendezvous for a thousand celepverv year, and upstairs to tne meeting of the Second Inteimational Congress on Astronautics. Here 50 scientists from a dozen countries were earnestly debating the .problems of travel to the moon and the Planets. Serious, learned men, the .absolute antithesis of the absent-minded professor type usually associated witn such ideas, listened intently as a young German scientist explained how it would be possible for space ships slowly to circle the earth and provide refuelling stations for Mara-bound rockets. . . As I left, an earnest young secretary asked me whether I would like to join the British Interplanetary Society. »r an annual subscription of £ 1 Ils pd. Already the society has 1600 paying members, but none, so far as he knew, from New Zealand. I almost put my name down for a ticket to Mars a trip he considers will be made before the end of the century. Next, to Broadway, where I had been told of a shop that stocked every old school and regimental tie in Britain. So it did—lsoo varieties of stripes and colours. Old school ties, like those of Eton and Harrow, are popular with overseas visitors. I was told by the manager; but few native Englishmen dare to wear them unless privileged to do so. The newest and most popular line is one covering 150 different divisions and formations of the British Army. The best-seller is the Bth Army tie, with tiny crusader shields on it. One expected in a few months will star the white fern leaf of the 2nd New Zealand Division. His rarest tie: that of the Beefeaters. “I don’t sell more than half a dozen in a year.” On through the park again to watch the drama of the world billiards match at the Leicester Square Hall, where Clark McConachy. the 56-year-old veteran from New Zealand (who keeps fit by not smoking or drinking and running two miles every morning), was making a last and determined bid to win the world title. His opponent is the young, debonair English champion or 1950. John Barrit. A place of tremendous atmosphere this, with the brilliant lights beating down on the table, its religious hush, the soft double click of tne balls, the relentless concentration of the cueman, the whispered commentary of the television commentator.

And so back through the streets, now roaring with the peak of the homeward rush traffic. Bomb Fright A chilling reminder of the big 1941 blitz on London was discovered yesterday. It was a 5001 b German bomb struck by the scoop of a mechanical shovel while clearing a bomb site. At first the operator thought it was a big stone and he jabbed at it again and again until the horrible truth dawned on him. In less time than this takes to type, the site was clear of men and the police had been called to cordon off the area. Traffic was slowed down to a crawl lest the vibration might set it off and hundreds of people in surrounding homes were ordered to leave while the bomb disposal engineers came to unfuse it. This section of the Royal Engineers has been doing this work steadily ever aince the way. ‘We know where there are scores of unexplpded bombs about England, an officer told me recently

in a matter-of-fact voice. "I supper we ll still be finding an occasional one in 20 years' time.” A Veteran First-Nighter

A man died in London this week who has attended almost every fint night in the last 40 years. He Mr Herbert Smith, better known to the world as Keith Prowse, whose slogan. "You Want the Best SeatsWe Have Them’’ earned him a fortune He began going to first nights in 1 02 and backing his judgment of what h« thought of the performance, he would buy up hundreds of thousands of seats for resale at his ticket libraries, m 1936 he announced he had attended his five thousandth first night; by the time he died he must have gone t 0 close on 10,000. To-day the firm he founded has 30 branches all over London. They can supply tickets for almost every event in the entertainment world from a prize fight to ballet. A Fortune From Schoolboy Howlen Another man who died a few days ago was Mr Walter Carruthers Sellar, a schoolmaster at Charterhouse, who built up a large fortune from the schoolboy howlers he heard. More than 20 years ago he collaborated with another schoolmaster, Mr Julian Yeatman, to write the classic skit on history, "1066 and All That.” As a book and a play it was a great success The pair followed it up with “And Now All This,” “Horse Nonsense," and "Garden Rubbish.” All contributed towards the £30,000 he left in his will to his widow and two daughters. Justice for Huebands Once every week six men gather in the Bermondsey flat of Mr Frederick Wormull, founder and chairman of the Married Men’s Association, to discuss and prepare their Charter of In. justices, which is to be submitted to the Royal Commission on Marriage. There are 1000 members in the association, several of whom are bachelors. "Men are pitifully unaware of the legal responsibilities that fall on them when they get married. If a thoughtful bachelor knew about the pitfalls of marriage he would fight shy,” he says. His wife, the mother of two small children, supports his views. “Most women are not prepared to give and take,” she says. She thinks husbands are often badly treated by the marriage laws, particularly in so far as they are responsible for taxation on their wives' earnings and to pay maintenance for the home ana children even when the wife walks out « them. Boogie-Woogie and Polities An unusual couple now in London are Mr and Mrs Adam Powell. Mr Powell, a 6ft negro whose grandfather was a slave, is one of the only two negro Congressmen in the United States, He was also the first negro to be elected to the New York City Council. His wife. Hazel Scott, is a beautiful Trinidad-bom negress, whose boogie-woogie interpretations of the classics have made her a star in the musical and radio world, with earnings that top £lOOO a week. She hu also appeared in three films, “Broadway Melody,” "The Heat's On,” and “Rhapsody in Blue.” While they are in London she will appear at the Palladium, he at the World Parliamentary conference. Bad Reception for Prise Play

A play which has had the worst reception from the critics of any this year has been chosen by the Arti Theatre Club for its special £7OO Festival prize. The play is "Saint'i Day,” by John Whiting, and was one of the three finalists from the 997 plays submitted from all over the world. Here are some of the opinions on it from the leading critics. “If the last act had any meaning it escaped me"; “extraordinary hotcnpotch, imaginative or meaningless as you will"; “a crazy rigmarole”; “designed no doubt to illustrate some profound truth—but what?”; and, from “The Times,” “cf a badness that must be called indescribable.” Discussing the competition, the veteran critic, P. L. Mannock, said: “The whole levql is a deplorable reflection on current dramatists. I would not have awarded any prize at aU." The judging panel was Peter Ustinov, Christopher Fry, and Alec Cluteti. director of the Arts Theatre Club. These Barpipes are English Where do y< u think bagpipes are enjoying a minor boom just now? -Why, here in London. The 75-year-'old Camden Town firm which makes them reports that its sales this year are easily a record, many being sold to overseas visitors. Strangely enough, there is nothing Scottish about their bagpipes. None of the present principals has ever been to Scotland, while the materials all come from south of the border, the ivory from the Belgian Congo, the wood from West Africa, the tartan ribbon from France, reeds from Spain, and the sheepskin from England. The 'grandfather of the present head of the firm, Mr Henry Starck, was a flute maker and made his first bagpipes for Queen Victoria's personal piper 75 years ago. My Sweet Lady Nicotine A very senior and crusty officer at the Admiralty has long threatened to give up smoking if the price went up. Recently, when cigarettes went up a Id per 20, he was as good as hi* word. However, his colleagues had such an unpleasant day as a result that they presented him the following morning with a tin of 100 and the following note: "We shall all be glad to see you smoking again.”