DOUBTFUL AMUSEMENTS

Greymouth Evening Star, 18 January 1930, Page 9

DOUBTFUL AMUSEMENTS

PLEASURE WE*DON’T ENJOY,

We call ourselves a free people, and I think we honestly believe that we go where we please and do what we please. Never has a nation suffered so great a delusion in the history of mankind (writes Miss Gracie Helds, England’s best known comedienne). We are more handicapped to-day by the people who devise amusements for us than were the savage or barbarian. A barbarian at least enjoyed himself in the manner that he most liked. He climbed trees and made mud-pies (one of my favourite amusements) without let or hindrance, and—this is very important—nobody asked him to go to musical evenings, church bazaars, and garden parties. To-day should we dare to admit that we would sooner sit and make mud-pies than go to the local mothers’ meetings we should be exposed publicly as lunatics.

All my life I have been compelled to participate in amusements that I don’t enjoy. Of course, it is a common fetish that certain pastimes are bound to entertain all the people who take part in them. How we hnve all suffered for this ill-conceived idea. How often we have wondered each and every one of us, why on earth people were expected to enjoy certain of the entertainments given us, and whether anybody in the history of the world really had liked thefm. I should imagine that every child has suffered heartrending pangs when it was made to stand up before a circle of gushing relatives to recite, sing, or to play the piano. In my own childhood my ears used to burn, I felt violently sick, and I,used to long for the floor to open and swallow me into the cellars below when I was compelled to get up and perform. It was quite a different thing from appearing on the stage, which I did at the age of seven, in a dancing competition, and which I decided there and then should be my metier in life. Children love to act on the stage, and do not suffer from “nerves.” But this has no relation to those dreadful private performances that chidren are forced to give before their relatives. But the terrible moments when the child of the family stumbles through a recitation or a “piece” on the piano or violin is not my only grievance. Far from it. I have a complete list. I have always been made to feel when I wished to protest against some particularly skilfully applied torture such as the presentation of a portrait to one of the local councillors, that I was the only person who did not wish to join in, and that everyone else was just aching to do so. And yet I felt that nobody really did look forward to the ceremony of seeing the councillor’s portrait presented to him any more than I did. Nevertheless, I have attended the function, and applauded as loudly as any. But now that I have been asked to speak of the change that I most want to see, I am going to take active steps, and this is only a beginning. I am going to send out a questionnaire, with a list upon it of so-called entertainments, implore my friends to speak the truth the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and discover whether they really and truly enjoy the following : — Amateur concerts, Garden parties, Whist drives, . Musical evenings (unprofessional). Afternoon, tea parties. Church bazaars, Seeing a medal presented to the retiring village policeman (with speeches). Of course, the answers may come as a surprise to me. Possibly these things are the very life-blood of gaiety, and it is I that am the dullard. Perhaps everyone would die of boredom if there were not these functions to enliven them. . . J If, however, I am right, and the majority of people have suffered as I have through the compulsion that drives one to attend such entertainments, I shall set about preparing a revolution against unamusing amusements 1 . It would be a bloodless revolution, of course, for with Gandhi, Lenin, and Tolstoy, I believe in passive resistI shall ask all who ieel as I do to refuse invitations (commands, as these are really, camouflaged by the word invitation), and state the reasons for the refusal. I shall also ask all loyal followers to tell the inviter what he, the invitee, woud really consider a diversion. I am busily drafting my own refusal, which I trust will be regarded as a model to be copied widely. MIXING MUD FOIL A CHANGE. Let us suppose that Mrs X— has asked me to attend a mothers’ meeting with a sale in the offing. She will pen a friendly note, which will run something like this “Dear Miss Fields,— I should be so glad if you would come to our bazaar on the 10th. It is going to be such fun. The dear Bishop will be there, and we are going to see some Czecho-Slovakian peasant blouses and some wooden bowls designed by dear Miss Y , who is so artistic, and for whom you might like to call as she is suffering from rheumatism, and really ought not to come alone.” And I shall answer, bold and brave :

“Dear Mrs X, — No, thank you. 1 shall be making mud-pies in my garden with some friends on the 10th, and so I shall not be able to come.” . Won’t that be a grand and glorious feeling? Among other amusements that 1 would abolish, shopping would come first. I have always been expected to enjoy shopping, and invariably 1. have found it an over-rated pastime. I should much prefer to leave it to someone who really liked it. Indeed I should be content to wear anything that came my way. Women’s alleged desire to preen and prink at any hour of the day or night leaves me so cold that my teeth chatter. And I should put aside also all the so-called pleasures of washing and keeping scrupulously clean. I should have my bath every day, but never wash odd bits at odd times, as one is supposed to enjoy doing. I should also revel in a. practice which I am told is very odd —being punctual. Being a woman, I have always had it impressed upon me that I must keep people waiting, and that it is almost bad form to show that you are glad you are meeting somebody by turning up to the moment. As a matter of fact, I should feel a real satisfaction in saying to a friend “Well. I have enjoyed waiting ten minutes for you.” , Such are 1501110 of the changes that I

should like to see, ami I hope that through thia article I shall have begun a, successful war on dull and stupid conventions as well as formed the nucleus of a. Society to Demolish Amusements That Aren’t Amusing and Pleasures That We Don’t Enjoy.