ST. GEORGE'S DAY

Evening Post, Volume CXXIX, Issue 96, 23 April 1940, Page 10

ST. GEORGE'S DAY

(By "Ebor.")

Is a Yorkshireman allowed to sayon this, England's Day, that England is a good country and that the English are good folk? True, the English have their faults: They are a little conceited about their modesty and are apt to advertise on a large scale the' fact that they do not advertise.. But these are small blemishes. The English are kindly and tolerant—we have that on the authority of at least one Scotsman. The English are the only people who are both sentimental and humorous. It is characteristic of them that they have a patron. Saint and know very little about him. *St. George has his day, of course, but he is never given such a show as that tough chap from York, Guy Fawkes. We are none of us quite sure who st; George was, though we disbelieve most of the stories about him, especially the tale about his being a rather fishy army contractor in Asia Minor. Many have a half-sneaking wish to believe in the "Saint" George who slew the. dragon—that extraordinary monster belching smoke and flame and seductively murmuring, with a Mac west coyness, "Come up and slay, me some time!" , „ is your idea, dear reader? Shall we construct a synthetic twentieth century St. George? Suppose we try. Just think of him then 'as a little like Falstaff and a little like Mr. Micawber, with a dash of Sir Roger de Coverley and Uncle Toby and Jack Hobbs and Jess Oakroyd. He must, of course, be a good countryman, and love gardens and country inns, but he must also have a cockney strain in him, which would make him appreciate Grac'ie Fields if ever he had the luck to meet that precious asset of Old England. ... He would have to be sentimental so that he. could shed a silent tear on occasion under the cover of the cinema's darkness. A rum mixture? Yes, but a jolly mixture, and every bit of it English. ■ Can anyone wonder, then, TnaV exiled twelve (or is it thirteen?) thousand miles away from Home, the Englishman now and then likes to spend an evening with the folk from his own shire? But be he a man from Dorset, a Midlander, a Man of Kent (or a Kentishman). a Tynesider, a Durham man, or a Yorkshire Tyke, he will forget for the nonce his own district, and join forces when it comes to St. George's (England's) Day. That is the secret of success of organisations such as the English Folk Association, which brings into one big family Wellington's English County Societies. ■. .' P S.—Every Englishman and Englishwoman in New Zealand owe their thanks'to a Welshman who recently addressed the citizens of Wellington. Mr. Grenfell, a Labour member of Parliament/from Home, stirred us all when he told us that old England today awaits whatever the war may have in store for her with calmness, with patience, and without fear. ... ,