A JOURNALIST’S BAG

Greymouth Evening Star, 22 December 1934, Page 3

A JOURNALIST’S BAG

MR. F. E. BAILY’S IMPRESSIONS. Tho successful journalist makes interesting contacts; professionally, if not privately, he meets eminent people in most walks of life. Mr. F. E. Baily —author, editor and free-lance of distinction —describes such contacts in his autobiography (“Twenty-Nine Years’ Hard Labour”). The art of entering rooms, he suggests, has been completely lost by women, but Lady Diana Cooper is an inspiring exception. To have seen her enter a room “is quite enough excuse for having lived. . . . After ono has seen Lady Diana enter a room, to see any other woman do it merely gives one a pain in the neck. I do not know how tall she is, but. I can only put it on record that she is the perfect height for a woman, and that she moves as I have never seen anyone else move, with the possible exception of Pavlova. . . He' praises, too, the beautiful speaking voice, which, “by some miracle of intonation,” gives each word its exact value. In short, he thinks Lady Diana everything the civilised woman should be, and considers that contact with her should bo part of the education of young society girls. He heard a significant confession from that talented actress. Miss Edna Bost: —

Tho trouble with me is I’ve always been put into loading parts ever since my first success, and I don’t know a thing about my job. If only 1 could go into some place and be produced either by Charles Hawtrey. Gerald du Maurier, or Basil Dean, it would be the making of me, because any of them could tell me exactly where 1 go wrong.

Not very long afterwards, Mr. Baily 1 points out, she was chosen to play Tessa, in “The Constant Nymph,’’ under Mr. Dean’s direction; her performance was a great triumph, and she has never since looked back. When Mr. Baily met Miss Rosita Forbes he was convinced of the genuineness of her liking for wild places. She said to him, with a sigh of satisfaction: “It will be so nice to get out in the desert again, where you needn’t bother to be tidy or clean your linger-1 nails.” She also told him that when! she was invited to Buckingham Palace] to talk with the King and Queen] about her expedition to Kufra, ‘they -were so interested that l hey held my ono precious map between them, and I was terrified all the time that they would tear it.” FOUR-GUINEA STOCKINGS. Miss Phyllis Monkman, the dancer, is the only woman Mr. Baily ever knew who confessed to wearing stockings which cost four guineas a pair; and she told him solemnly that sometimes one pail', would not last out the j evening’s performance! Mr. Baily believes he was the first magazine editor to commission stories bv Mr. Michael Arlen; in the days before “The Green Hat” he was “the simplest, most charming individual one cruld have wished to meet.” Rater, when he had won fame, Mr. Baily met him standing gloomily in the hull 01. Messrs. Pearson’s building in Henrietta. Street, and he suggested that he should give Mr. Baily a lift, as they were both going West. Drawn u p outside the door "was the most

colossal primrose-yellow Rolls-Royce I have seen. I suppose the chassis of all 40 h.p. Rolls-Royces are the same length, but for some reason this particular example looked nearly as big as a motor coach. To my astonishment Michael pointed to it somewhat sheepishly and said: “That’s mine,” and I gathered that we were to proceed up Piccadilly in this regallooking chariot.” Once ho found Mr. Arlen sitting in a corner of the restaurant at the Embassy Club, and “he assured me solemnly that he had always the first lefusal of two corner tables. This fact seemed to give him infinite satisfaction.” It was certainly a triumph for an Armenian, one an unknown exile in London, who told Mr. Baily. in discussing his hapless people, “although they are always being massacred, at. least they are massacred in tho open air.” From his writings. Mr. Baily judged Arnold Bennett to be “a rather frustrated character” who was “permanently afraid of life and had to make a big noise all the time to persuade himself that he was really very brave.” When he visited Bennett. in a large house in the vicinity of Sloane Street, be had tho impression that “he had only just moved in and had not got quite straight, a.s ladies say. Certainly tho amenities of the establishment seemed distinctly sketchy, though there were signs that when everyth.ng was in order the furnishings would be lavish, if not. indeed, rococo and baroque. Bennett seemed to find some trouble in having tea. made, but after a, certain amount of argument it was brought in by a manservant.” Thomas Hardy lie dubs “as gloomy an old crepe-hanger as ever lived.” . . . And he reminds us that Ralph Hodgson, tho poet of “The Bull” and other fine work, would play billiards for hours in a Strand saloon and contribute comic features like ‘Airy Alf and Bouncing Billy to the “Boys Leader or “Bif Budget.”

WAR TIME ADVENTURES. Mr. Baily tells some amusing stories of his war service and the campaign in East. Africa. During _ the early days, when they were waiting for uniform, a favourite trick was to fall in a number of men and then say: “Fail out, the men who can drive Rolls-Royces.” When a number of simple souls who wished to drive those lino cars had fallen out, the corporal would continue: —• “Well, you’re for coal fatigue. ’ In his convoy in Africa ’Mr. Baily had “a particularly outstanding fool whom I will call X; one of the worst drivers I have ever seen. On a certain day, just after Corporal 8.1 and I hud mended a puncture for him. be-; cause he was quite incapable of mend-' t ing it himself. X started up his engine' and proceeded instantly to drive on to] another, tree stump and ruin anothertyre. This left me completely speech-, less; it was Corporal 8.1 who covered himself first. “ ‘And what, was you in civil life, X? ho demanded, to which X replied in a. species of Scottish accent which I have never heard before or since: — “ ‘1 assisted my wife in a baby linen shop.’ Thereupon Cornoral 8.1 said with perfectly indescribable sarcasm: — “ ‘Ah! X, I can just see you ameasuring out the lace!'