WRITER'S BIRTHDAY

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 79, 30 September 1938, Page 18

WRITER'S BIRTHDAY

W. W. JACOBS

NEW ZEALAND ADMIRERS

(By Air Mail, from "The Post's" London

Representative.)

LONDON, September 8,

"Please express my warmest thanks to all those kind and thoughtful people in New Zealand who have remembered me on my seventy-fifth birthday in such a charming way," said Mr. W. W. Jacobs today, after he had received presents of a silver tankard, a greenstone paperweight, and a greenstone paperknife. The presents were accompanied by a letter from Mr. lan Donnelly (Timaru), Mr. J. H. E. Schroder, and Mr. A. E. Caddick (Christchurch), who explained that New Zealanders were anxious to express their regard to Mr. Jacobs personally and to acknowledge the pleasure his writings had given so many of. them during the past forty years. The tankard was inscribed "W. W. Jacobs, on his 75th birthday. In grati-j tude and admiration from New Zealand friends." A list of principal subscribers and maps of the North and j South' Islands accompanied the gifts, j Mr. Jacobs received the presents in j his small flat at St. John's Wood. He! spent the day quietly and enjoyed a dinner party with friends in the evening. "I am so delighted," he said, "that I find it difficult to express my thanks. There are, some occasions 'when you feel like that, and this is one of them. The presents came so unexpectedly, and were a great and pleasant suri prise. I "I appreciate particularly the inscription on the tankard, but I am [afraid it is going to knock out of my head any idea I might have had of [going teetotal. I shall place it on my mantelpiece, and when I am no longer here to drink out of it, my family shall have it. I am delighted too, with the greenstone. It is beautiful. "I have never had anything like this on my birthdays before —in fact I had almost forgotten about having birthdays. But if I continue to have such presents, I shall begin ,to look forward to them again." Asked what are his plans for the future, Mr. Jacobs replied with a smile, "To live as long as I possibly can." "I should like very much to go to New Zealand," he added, "but I am afraid that I shall never have the opportunity. It is so very far away, and it takes so long to get there uAless you go by air. I am going to write to Mr. Donnelly and his friends thanking them for their kindness. I shall always treasure their presents." Except for a short story three years ago, Mr. Jacobs has not written anything for a dozen years, and this has led to the legend that he does not like writing. "When I am asked about my 'methods' and my 'technique,'" he said, "I quote people a line from a farce I once saw in which the master is rating his servant, saying, 'When you work do you always twiddle your thumbs like that, Johnson? 1 to which Johnson replied, 'No, sir, sometimes I twiddle them the other way, like this!' "You see, I don't believe in all this nonsense which is talked about writing. I have writteii because I have liked it and because it helped my bank account —I have never gone in for all this psychological analysis business. Writing and humour must, I believe, be a quite unconscious art. "I first made my acquaintance of the characters about whom I wrote," he said, '?when my father, who was a wharf manager, took a house overlooking the Thames on South Devon Wharf, Wapping. I was 23 at the time and working in the Post Office building in Queen Victoria Street. It was not for another seven years, however, that I wrote my first book of stories, 'Many Cargoes,' which ran into 38 editions, and is still selling." Asked if he would write some more companions to the delightful "The Skipper's Wooing," "Light Freight," "The Lady of the Barge," "Deep Waters,", and others, Mr. Jacobs replied, "Yes, I think so —if I got a brand-new idea. I am living in hope."