RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31753, 9 August 1968, Page 16

RANDOM REMINDER

COMINGS AND GOINGS

They will never know now, those residents of Wilfred street, just what it was all about unless the principal characters in the piece have the kindness of heart to come and tell

them and thus put to an end many hours of maddening speculation. Perhaps it would be better to start at the beginning. It usually is. Into the street as residents came a group of Asian university students—clearly hard-working and industrious young men, who went to and fro, not saying anything anyone could hear, •nd smiling inscrutably

from time to time. Two of them used to chug past the house of our informant on motor-scooters. But recently they acquired a small, none too-new motorcar.

Each day, at lunch-time, they returned home in the car. And day after day, they went down Wilfred Street backwards. It has been utterly frustrating for the others in the street. Have the students driven all the way from the University in reverse gear? Was there some deeper significance in the business?: there are some who believe they can plan their

paths best by taking note of what has happened in the past. Was there some other explanation, 'hidden deep in the history of the mystic east? Or just beneath the bonnet? All sorts of theories were advanced, and debated; and many were thrown out of gear when the car succumbed to winter’s chills and had to be man-handled before it would start. They pushed it forwards, in silence and with Inscrutable smiles. The observers are not nearly so inscrutable. They are positively dancing with impatience and frustration.