As I Hear . . . Stupidity Street

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31275, 23 January 1967, Page 17

As I Hear . . . Stupidity Street

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J.H.E.S.)

A year or two ago, at a time of widespread tornadoes, hurricanes and floods, I mentioned here A. P. Herbert’s “Watch This Space,” an anthology of space fact, and referred in particular to the section on Orbital Debris. There I found evidence to support my ignorant notion that nuclear explosions and rocket discharges had disturbed and were disturbing the conditions in space, which regulate the world’s weather and its irregularities.

I am moved to turn back to the question by such irregularities—to go on using this unquestionable term —as the monstrous floods in Italy, affecting Florence and Venice; as the earthquakes in Turkey, in Mongolia, and once again in South America; as the hurricanes that have smashed some United States towns; and —to come home—the rains that have wrecked the cut hay and laid the standing hay not far from Wellington, pulped raspberries and strawberries and black currants, sunk the

growth and quality of lambs, obliged bee-keepers to feed their bees, and, to add a pathetic detail, swamped the holidays of families in tents and beach cottages up this coast. Yes, of course, we have always been subject to such irregularities. I recall a Show Day at Addington that was drenched by the rains of a violent southerly storm; which produced (for dramatic entertainment) one of the most thrilling displays of indigo cloud, Henry Irving thunder, and brilliant lightning I have ever seen; and which, in the hard frost that followed, killed one of my peach trees stone dead and blasted my potatoes. Yes, of course, and 1 do not argue much from this, except that, when the Wairarapa has 10 inches of rain in December, against an annual fall of 35 inches, the irregularity is gross . . . and lamentable. But forget the Wairarapa, and think of Florence, Venice, Turkey, Mongolia, and the South American littoral. Then let me recall lan

Fleming’s letter to “The Times,” of December, 1960: If it is possible to bring down light rain by firing light artillery at the cloud, what is likely to happen if you pepper the outer atmosphere with rockets and other miscellaneous hardware? The obvious' answer to a layman would be more rain. Jamaica (not so far from Cape Canaveral) has just had the wettest November in living memory.

Fleming’s letter was referred to the Ministry of Science and to the Air Ministry. The first said: “We don’t think there is any connexion between rockets, etc., and the weather;” and the second said: “No connexion has been established. . . .” But, as you see, neither would deny the connexion.

Professor Parker, of the University of Manitoba, writing to “The Times” towards the end of 1958, observed that, while recent years had been marked by a remarkable sequence of hurricanes, gales, tornadoes, electric storms, and unnatural extremes of temperature in hitherto equable regions, the past few months had been unparalleled in tempestuousness. “Some places with an average of three or four storms a year,” he said, “have already had more than 10 times that number.” * * *

Somebody may wonder why, above, I refer to “Henry Irving thunder.” Just a recollection of Irving’s rehearsal, when he wanted from the effects man all that he could get from the thunder sheets, perhaps in the storm scene of “King Lear;” stopped to tell him it was not enough; and was answered, “Beg pardon, Sir Henry, but that was thunder.” Irving said, “What is good enough for the Almighty is not necessarily good enough for the Lyceum.” But to go back to the questionable climatic disturbances of nuclear explosions and of outer planetary rocket discharges and to go beyond them, I quote from Rachel Carson, as quoted by A.P.H., the Dutch scientist C. J. Brieger: “Once again we are walking in nature like an elephant on the china cabinet.” Rachel Carson’s thesis is that our pest-poisoning techniques are in fact poisoning our vegetation, our streams, our bird life, our fish and so forth. So they are poisoning us. . . . I fear that Rachel Carson’s evidence is too strongly suggestive to be rejected, though she may not clinch it. And I remember the second half of Ralph Hodgson’s poem, “Stupidity Street”:

“I saw in vision The worm in the wheat, And in the shops nothing For people to eat: Nothing for sale in Stupidity street.” * # Neville Cardus is knighted; and I suppose it is a just honour, but in my opinion too late. He earned it long ago, when he wrote the liveliest, most charming commentaries on cricket. But for years past? Truly, I think Cardus ran out of his vein and out of his interest. I remember during his long stay in Australia, when the New Zealand Press Association engaged him to report a Test series, there was never a drabber series of reports. In one of them, on a dull period, he telegraphed that the play had provided him with no occasions for metaphor. We all knew how clever Cardus was in interpreting an innings by Woolley as a Mozart soloist . . . and perhaps we had begun to weary of these parallels. But when Cardus told us that he looked in vain for metaphors, in the play, we realised (at least, I did) that his interest in cricket had lapsed and had been concentrated on his cleverness as a writer. The curious thing, however, is that when Cardus wrote his autobiography he recovered his charm and liveliness. Nowhere else will you find so lively the character of his recollections of Walter Brearley or of Emmott Robinson. So, as I say, Cardus’s knighthood comes too late . . . unless it is partly due to his work as a music critic?

During the same days I see the report of the death of Maurice Leyland, one of the great Yorkshire and England cricketers. During the maddest of my mad days on Australian and English cricket, Leyland was one of my favourite characters; for

again and again he took over in a tough situation and restored it. Lord Cobham, may 1 venture to say, shared my special affection for Leyland. It was one of my happinesses to talk to Lord Cobham, now and then, about music and about cricket, and about the English language. So it came that he told me of a day when O’Reilly was ripping through the Yorkshire side. Leyland was next in. The captain said to him, “Hit this fellow off, Maurice.” Leyland said: “Ah’U cloomp beggar, skipper.” He went out, he did it, he hit O’Reilly out of the game, he returned to the pavilion with 70 odd. As he was unbuckling, his captain came over and he looked up. “As ah promised thee, skipper, ah cloomped beggar rightly.” But “beggar” was not Maurice’s word.