Teachers And Lecturer Praise Lawrence Novel

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29350, 1 November 1960, Page 13

Teachers And Lecturer Praise Lawrence Novel

(NJZ. Prcsr Association— Copyright)

LONDON, October 28. A schoolmistress went into the Old Bailey witness box today and said schoolgirls of 17 should read “Lady Chatterley’s Lover”; a headmaster in evidence said he would let his own children (aged 12 to 18) read it; and a lecturer said the book was pure, virtuous and spiritual.

Most girls knew crude ’‘fourletter words” . from the age of 10. the schoolmistress said. % Miss Sarah Jones, classics mistress of Keighley Grammar School, Yorkshire, was testifying in defence of the banned D. H. Lawrence novel about a wellbred woman’s love affair with her impotent husband’s gamekeeper. Asked about the “four-letter words” she said: “I have inquired of a number of girls after they have left school, and most of them have been acquainted with these words since they were about 10.” There was laughter and shouts of “Silence” from the ushers w-hen Miss Jones said the novel was “circulating underground.” Penguin Books, Ltd., are being prosecuted under the obscenity laws for publishing a new edition of the book, which British people have not been allowed to read since it was written 32 years ago. The prosecution has complained about its descriptions of the sex act. and the author’s blunt use of words, usually printed in asterisks. “Seriously Treated” The headmaster, Mr Francis Cannaerts, of Alleyne’s Grammar School. Stevenage, Hertfordshire, said the book was the only one he knew which treated the sexual relationship between humans in a really serious way. Asked if he would have any objections to his sons and daughters reading the book, he answered: “None at all.” The senior lecturer in English literature at Leicester University ‘Mr Richard Hoggart) for the defence was questioned about the use of four-letter words in the book. Mr Hoggart said the words seemed to him totally characteristic of many people. “Fifty yards from this court this morning. I heard a man say three times as I passed him. “He was talking to himself, and he said. ‘ her, her. her.’ He must have been angry. “These are common words if you work on a building site, as I have done. You will hear them freauently. “But the man I heard this morning, and the man on the building site used this word as a word of contempt, and one of the most horrifying things to Lawrence was that this word used for sex had become a term of abuse. He wanted to re-

establish the proper meaning of it.” An extract from the book was then read: “The whole point about the sexual problem,” said Hammond, who was a tall, thin fellow, with a wife and two children, but much more closely connected with a typewriter, “is that there is no point to it. Strictly, there is no problem. We don't want to follow a man into the w.c., so why should we want to follow him into bed with a woman?” (end extract). Mr Hoggart was asked: “There seems a suggestion of equating the sex act with a w.c.?” Satirical Passage “Yes. and it is interesting. The passage has to be read satirically, because it was written satirically,” said Mr Hoggart. Dr. Clifford Hemming, an educational psychologist, said the young girl of today believed from books that the supreme achievement of woman was to become irresistible to man through having the right anatomical proportions, the right clothes and right cosmetics. It was suggested to men that sex was little more than a physical thrill, and that to seduce a woman was manful. He added: “For many young people reading ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’ today it will be the first time they have come into contact with a concept of sex which includes compassion and tenderness and all that makes sex human.” The hearing was adjourned.