DICTATORS FORGOT

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 52, 30 August 1939, Page 12

DICTATORS FORGOT

THE AUGUST HOLIDAYS

CROWDS IN THE SUNSHINE i

LONDON TOPICS

(By Air Mail—From "The Post's" London Representative.)

LONDON, August 14,

August is always holiday month but there were some fears a few weeks ago that the looming international crisis might influence many people to staf- at home. The prospect had little pleasure for the catering trades at the many and various seaside resorts, and for this and other salutary reasons the public were requested to forget all bout Hitler, Mussolini, and Danzig, and to take their holidays as usual. In the light of the past weekend it would seem that the dictators had little or nothing to do with people staying at home. Apparently it waa the rain! August 12 and 13, while witnessing the meeting between Hitler and Ciano, also produced the sunniest weekend since the early part of June, and the people flooded the stations to start their holidays. The railways admitted that they were caught unawares and there was the heaviest road and rail congestion of the year. All day Saturday and Sunday the stations were packed; the ferry service from Dover to Calais had to be run in four sections, and even then. a great many people were 'left behind and had to go the following day. Hasty arrangements were made to run trains in duplicate and triplicate, but they were still crowded. Roads were choked all round London. Rain is frequently something of a joke during an English summer, but until the last weekend it threatened to become quite beyond humour. Since' June some districts have had more than twice and three times their accustomed supply of rain. The southeastern and eastern counties have had the worst of the weather since the end of July. Over several hundreds of square miles south of a line from the Wash to West Surrey there has been more rain, a dozen days than the whole of August ordinarily provides. Totals as great as 3in to 3_in are reported here and there, and flooding has been common after the heavier downpours. In addition to taking their holidays it has been suggested to the public that they should forget about the dictators and find other topics of conversation. There certainly has been plenty to talk about in addition to pseudo-war activities. SHAW'S FIFTIETH PLAY. Conversation on a higher plane has dealt with Mr. Bernard Shaw's new play, "In Good King Charles' Golden Days," which was produced for the first time at the Malvern Festival. Mr. Shaw is now 83, and it is the fiftieth play that he has written. Critics are kindly, and claim that Mr. Shaw has rescued the festival from being a dull affair. One declares that the new play is mostly talk, but what talk! Another declares: "Mr. Shaw at his wordiest," and still another announces that "Shaw writes a sex comedy," but adds that it is all inoffensive fun. Mr. W. A. Darlington, a well-known critic, says: "Age cannot wither Shaw, nor custom stale in infinite verbosity. This time the talk is about Charles the Second —the Merry Monarch, who lived so badly and died so well, who never said a foolish thing and never did a wise one, and whose perpetual job on the stage ever since has been to stand about as a not very important character in plays about Nell Gwynn. "Mr. Shaw thinks better of Charles than this. He sees him as a man who wore the English crown with great dexterity at a time when it did not fit too snugly, a man whose notorious Dhilanderings have obscured Ihe fact that he made Catherine of Braganza an excellent husband, a man, in fact, to whom history has been unfair." PROMENADE CONCERTS. Something else to talk about was the beginning of the new Promenade Concerts session at the Queen's Hall, where Sir Henry Wood began his 45th season with a swish of his long baton. At the first night the hall was packed to suffocation, and among the dense ranks of the standing people somebody occasionally fell down in a faint and had to be carried out, to the annoyance of those seated upstairs. The applause was thunderous for every item, but the orchestra should become inured to it by the time the concerts end on October 7. Then there was the Mauretania to discuss as she put to sea again for New York with a full complement of passengers. She stayed five days in the Port of London, the largest ship ever to enter the King George V Dock. There is only 3ft 6in to spare on either side when the liner is berthed, and as she is to come to London every three weeks there will be periodical anxious moments for those docking her. Grouse shooting began on August 12, but there were few grouse and little shooting on some moors. However, a brace of grouse was taken by the Cabot, the Imperial Airways flyingboat, on her first transatlantic trip, and they were addressed to Mr. Roosevelt. Their arrival marked the first occasion on which grouse have reached Washington within two days of the 12th. A DOUBLE ROAR. Sir Malcolm Campbell caused a double roar on Coniston Water where he travelled with Bluebird II for a new speed attempt. The Friends of Brentwood, a society founded a few year 9 ago to perpetuate the memory and preserve the treasures of John Ruskin, protested against the trials being held on the Water. They met and agreed on a resolution. In it they said that they believed the trials would "injure the beauty and disturb the quiet of the district, and that a national loss will result." The president of the society "found no consolation" in Sir Malcolm's statement that he would not make speed attempts on Sundays. Nevertheless, many Coniston people found plenty of interest, so much, indeed, that special constables were required to protect the boathouse, and barbed wire barriers had to be erected to prevent "unauthorised admission." THE OLD CONTEMPTIBLES. From Folkestone to Boulogne a party of 700 Old Contemptibles travelled on August 13 to mark the first British landing in France during the war. Wives, children, and friends made the total up to 1000, and at Boulogne they were met by crowds of French people six deep. With 400 Frenchmen, representing 24 French ex-servicemen's associations, the Old Contemptibles marched through Boulogne with bands playing and flags flying, and then they finished the day at a grand rally and concert in the Casino and Gardens. So in spite of Hitler, Mussolini, Ribbentrop, Ciano, IToerster, Goebbels, Gayda, and Deutschland über Alles, and all, there has been plenty fo? everyone to talk aboutl