RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30937, 18 December 1965, Page 43

RANDOM REMINDER

SAY IT WITH FLOWERS

O. Henry or Somerset Maugham could have done this a little better, perhaps. It's hard to teH. Bitt it began 25 years ago, when a young couple were drawn together by the Mystic Bonds of Love. These were more gracious times, pleasures were simple, and in the absence of hot 'rods, it was the custom for a young man to pedal his bicycle for his tryst with his beloved. Her parents were understanding, and usually withdrew smartly. She, a lovely girt, had a talent for floral arrangement and was usually engaged in that activity when be arrived. She was moot particular about getting the right sprig or twig for the best effect and her search for materials allowed for delightful daUtance in the spacious garden. They married, and lived in a Utile house, with a low rental. There was no money for entertainment but there waa a garden and the young bride took great

pride in filling the rooms with floral displays of quite breathtaking beauty. She replaced or altered them every day and every evening the young husband, returning from work, remarked on them. At anniversaries and birthdays, they bought each other vases or bowls or strangely shaped containers for flowers. After a few years, they had rather a lot. But the passage of time also brought the husband a better position, and with it, money to buy more furniture. He bought a fine dining table, which was hardly in position before it was merely a rfhMe for a magnificent urn of flowers. A china cabinet which followed met with similar use. So with an occasional table. Then came, with high income, an interest in the arts, and the purchase of pictures which soon covered the walls. They began to entertain—they bought a radiogram, a cocktail cabinet and it was

this which led to the first hint of difficulty. The husband discovered that if he wanted to pour his dinner guests their sherry, he had first to remove from the cocktail cabinet what appeared to be a large part of the Covent Garden market. Soft music from the radiogram made similar demands. And talking to the guests at the dinner table really required the agility of a trampolinist, without the usual launching pad. The man, one day. awoke to the fact that every available horizontal surface was occupied by the contents of his and half the neighbours’ gardens. Never mind, he thought, I still have my paintings, and she can't put vases of flowers over them. But that night be walked into the house: his cry of agony brought her at the run. She recoiled at the deep despair she saw in his eyes. It was their anniversary, and she had brought him a wall vase.