SERVICE FIRST

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 79, 30 September 1924, Page 8

SERVICE FIRST

AN. ACTOR'S CONFESSION ROTARIAN BRANSBY WILLIAMS, Mr. Bransby Williams, the English cha^atter impersonator, was the speaker a*, a full- fathering of the Wellington Rotary Club at lunch to-day. The president (Rotarian D. A. Ewen) was in the , chair. The guests included Rotarians 81.B1. J.. Nathan and W. Muir, of Palmerston North.

Rotariari Bransby Williams, introduced by'-the"chairman as the Ambassador of Rotary, the first member of the London Rotary Club to visit the Wellington Rotary Club,' was greeted with ap.plause. As a member of the London Club, he said, ho conveyed fraternal greetings. It was a great privilege to meet the Rotary Clubs as he went along. This day would mark his 158 th address to Rotary Clubs. His first visit to a Rotary Club he took in all seriousness as a Rotarian, not as an actor, and he merely addressed - the clubs. in the service of Rotary. He was glad to do any service he could, and so ho hoped to address schools on books and on Dickens, sowing the seed, he trusted, of a love of literature. The speaker mentioned the development of kindred clubs to Rotary in America, the Kinvanis, the Eclectics, and others. The rivalry in service between the different clubs in America was a very good thing. ■ He was proud, he declared, that there was a classification of "actor" in Rotary, and he was glad to be a follower of the . greatest Rotarian the world had ever known, Charles Dickens. It was "up to" members as citizens to help to keep the stage clean. The citizens had it in their own hands. There was no reason w/iy entertainment should not be clean as well as clever. He would quote ■the. cases of Harry Lauder, Albert . Chevalier; Zesta Tilley, Eugene Shalton, and others in proof. He was glad to see that the boys' work was a special feature •of Rotary. Nothing could be better in service than the training of the citizens of the future. The tragedy of the war was the boys who ran wild on big money, salaries as. big as their fathers had received to bring up families. There were the munition workers, who had been getting £10 a week, while the soldier was getting his shilling a day. Then' followed ' the dole—the curse of present-day England. He had known men who had never done a day's work since the war. The speaker dealt also with .the Industrial Welfare League, of which he was a member. He wanted them to feel that his life had been full of work. Tho reading of Dickens had confirmed him in the work. He was also a'member of the Eccentric Club, which was doing a great work in the founding of hostels and homes. ' In Dickens, said Mi. Williams, they had Tom F'e ich as the emblem of service and Pecksniff as the emblem of selfishness. The British Empire was now in need of another Dickens. Tho shops were piled with books, said tho speaker, and there was not one in fifty that would do anybody any good. He would Jike to-.sed-a novelist rise in New Zea' land and write about, the country, as iiall Came, had-written about the Isle of Man. They wanted somebody to advertise New Zealand, and he himself would do all ho could in that direction tor this', wonderful country. It was a fine thing to know that people in an I outpost of the Empire were so British and determined to remain British (Atj..plause,)...;.., „ . . l *■ ■■The chairman, amid 'renewed applause, -thanked the visitor on behalf of the1 club for his address.'