EYES IN THE BLACK-OUT

Greymouth Evening Star, 9 December 1939, Page 11

EYES IN THE BLACK-OUT

WHERE COUNTRYMAN SCORES

To walk through a copse at niglu with a countryman is to appreciate a power that environment has denied the townsman. For him the devouring jaws of night hold no terrors. Unhurried, but with unfailing purpose, he makes his way (writes Peter Lawless in the London “Daily Telegraph”).

On a path he has trodden before, every scent, and how sweet night scents can be, rustlings in the undergrowth, and the chirrup of a disturbed bird are to him landmarks on the map of shadows in his btain. Across strange country he can move with a certainty which bewilders the stumbling visitor from the city. Poor townsman! For him, now, even the town is as black as a country lane. Once night has muffled day the straight familiar road becomes a blindfold obstacle face. Where there was a kerbstone is now a precipice; while the perplexities and perils of a darkened revolving door are almost those to be associated with a passage of arms with Mr. Joe Louis in a coal cellar.

How good-humoured are the townsmen in their collisions. With what gusto they tell next morning of apologies wasted on the night air after collision with the pile of sandbags that for the moment seemed so human. Admittedly two black spaniels on leads made no fair obstacle. • Never were cold nose and friendly lick more welcome. Nor was a. friend’s strange house, condemned to darkness for its lack of shaded windows, anything but a perilous venture for a nighfs shakedown when last bus and tram had gone.

What powers will the townsman develop in his perambulations through the night? And how will the darkened ways affect his habits? All his life he has gone to work in transport so illuminated that he, strap-hanging or wedged with serried elbows, may read his paper.

Dinnerwards, his way is l brilliantly lighted, while looking skywards winking signs stab his eyes with slogans of salesmanship. Not for him are the trailing glories of the skies, the Neon lights outshine' them.

But now he is left so that the glow of'a cigarette is at once a comforting sign of’human presence and a guiding beacon. Shut, perhaps, is his constant cinema, and shut his occasional theatre. Only the wireless remains to the inan who has gradually lost the power to entertain himself. Perhaps there will be a gradual return to leisured reading, with the high-speed mystery thriller losing its hold. The decayed art of conversation may know some slight revival when the tales of the Allied victories have been told and the flags moved slowly forward towards Berlin. ' But how lonely the lonely will be now. How interminable will.seem the dark hours to the great race who occupy “bed-sitting rooms.” Yes, it is the countryman who scores. All his life he has risen and walked abroad before the world is aired. Bed is his early friend.