IN PRAISE OF BEDS

Evening Star, Issue 22974, 3 June 1938, Page 12

IN PRAISE OF BEDS

MAN'S GREATEST GIFT AND INVENTION A GREAT NATIONAL INSTITUTION The three most enjoyable things in life, as Omar. Khayyam would certainly tell you if ho were still around, are: good food, sharp razors, and bed. And of these, my little chick-a-bid-dies, the most exquisite, the most soulsoothing, the most longed-for is, undoubtedly, bed (writes Maurice Lane Norcott, in the ‘Daily Mail’). One might imagine that bed, being a great national institution loved by all classes of the community, would be a favourite theme of poets and that whole anthologies would be devoted to the prai.se of bed. Oddly enough, though, this is not so. One looks in vain for Shelley’s great ‘ Ode to Bed,’ or . Gray’s * Elegy Written in a Country. Four-poster,’ or even Kipling’s ‘ Beds, beds, beds, beds!’

Yet I am prepared to swear that the bed, even more than the wheel, which has become rather a dangerous nuisance to-day, is man’s greatest invention. MAN’S GREATEST GIFT. Not only is the bed man’s greatest gift to man, but it is the source of many of his other inventions, as well. At no time is the human, brain so fertile as when its owner is lying comfortably in bed at night, far from the hurly-burly, vaguely thinking of this and that.

Take the steam engine, for instance —that useful adaptation of the kettle which to-day is used largely for conveying persons from a bed in one town to a bed in another, with, maybe, a temporary bed on the way if it happens to be a long journey. No one in their senses can believe that Watt gave steam more than a passing thought as he sat in his mother’s kitchen watching the kettle lid bob up and down. All that he wanted at that moment was his tea. ■ It was an the silent watches of the night, while lying in his bed in. the attic, that the notion to harness, steam must first have occurred to him. You see? No bed—no Flying Scotsman. Other great inventions which quite obviously were first conceived In bed are these: the telephone, the lift, the moving staircase, and the free-wheel bicycle; ■ _ The creative urge behind all of them is a very typical bed-thought—namely, how can I convey my voice, my wish, or myself from here to there without the trouble of moving? Consider also this important aspect of . bed, chicks. How precious is it as a means of escape from all that is tiresome, dreary, and boring in life. . Once in the sanctity of our own bed no one can slap us on the back as they do at our club, saying, “ Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.” In bed we are gloriously free from Pekingese dogs, bankers, gas inspectors, and strange men in bowler hats who want to sell us vacuum cleaners. Once our heads are under the bedclothes, and so long as the house doesn’t catch fire, we are absolutely safe from the outside world until the next morning. BARBAROUS! Yet, oddly enough, in spite of' its many fine qualities, the bed is still in its infancy. Like the shoemakers child, it remains the worst shod. For example, even at this late date there is no really satisfactory method of reading in bed—jet alone writing. Either one is obliged to sit up with shoulders exposed to the night arf, clutching the book with numb fingers, or one has to turn sideways and _ prop it against the wall—with the inevitable result that the slightest movement shuts it. _ .. • I call this barbarous. Surely in the year 1938 a man should be able to ho on his back and put his hands through two neat holes in the bedclothes?

NOW HERE’S A REAL BED. Nor do I understand why bed manufacturers fail to realise that there is a growing demand for late dance music among bed-lovers. A small wireless set incorporated in the bed itself, which could be switched on and off by a pressure of the big toe, would find a ready And if cars can be supplied with cigarette lighters and ash trays as standard fitments, then why not beds? Indeed, one of my favourite visions is of ,the ideal bed of the future: a self-contained, central-heated bed complete with bookcase, writing desk, smoker’s companion, radio, telephone, and coffee percolator; a bed in which a man may keep abreast of modern literature and art and, if necessary, catch, up on his correspondence curing the night; a bed from which the eiderdown never slips and no springs creak. A very delicious bed indeed, and one, I think, which supplies a long-felt want.