‘CHARLEY’S TAVERN’

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 76, 14 October 1941, Page 4

‘CHARLEY’S TAVERN’

BASE FOR SAILORS’ MAIL WAITING FOR SHIES THAT NEVER ( GUI There’s a grim stack of mail in Char- . h y's Tavern on Seventh av. waiting for hips that never came in, writes Richard Hughe from NV York to the Melbourne "Argus." Bearing, Amen can, English, Scottish, Welsh, and Irish I porimarks, the letter are addressed to British seamen, “c. o Charley’s Tavern.” I And they’ve been lying unclaimed for four or five months. So Charley shakes his head, set., up another round of drinks, and reckons they'll never be collected now. Charley' Tavern, just around the corner , from Broadway, between Gist and 52nd, is the favourite New York drinking house of the British merchantmen who run the death convoys to and from Britain. Curiously, it is also the favourite haunt of the drummers, jazzmen and showmen from Broadway, and the torch song composers from Tin Pan Alley. You see the British merchantmen come in. during their brief New York escape from bombers, submarine:, and . day and night vigil across the Atlantic. Curious, shy little men, with apologetic grins and ludicrous "Pommy” talmost as Judi.aous as the Orstrylianl accent, their hair carefully slicked down with grease, their shiny blue suits tenderly pressed, they drink the light frothy American beer with roughened broken-nailed hands, eye furtively the photographs of radio, film, and stage celebrities on the wall, and the strange, noisy assembly of Broadway showmen disputing over then rye and Scotch around them. They pick up their mail from Charley, awkwardly understate convoy losses and perils and air blitz effects in reply to anxious questions, and, with a "So long. Charley. Back in a coopla weeks,” bob diffidently out in the bewildering traffic, dazzling neons, and glittering 100-story skyscrapers of Broadway. ' "I know all these fellers,” says Charley, gloomily flicking through his unclaimed mail. “Nice young fellers. There’s some of 'em got girls here they were going to marry. “The girls come in and ask if they've , turned up yet. 1 have to say ‘No,’ but I tell ’em mebbe they’ve been put on j other runs. I "But they disbelieve me. You know ' what women arc. “Now look at these.” He threw- down I six envelopes addressed in the same feminine hand to the same able seaman under the same South Dakota post- ; mark. “This little girl was on a holiday, and she met this feller in Noo York. 1' was jest after th. war broke out. They only came here the once together —he used to come here every time he i was in Noo York —and he told me then they were going to get married. "But I haven't seen him now m months.” Charley wiped the bar gloomily, shook his head. “Now I dunno what to do with those let ers. If I send ’em back to her. she'll know he's dead. If I don’t send ’em back, mebbe she’ll think worse things.” Charley is a square, aproned man with a broad grin. He came from Stepney. but hasn't lived in England for 28 years, and served with the American army last war. He has all the exiled Britisher’s wistful nostalgia for Britain and hungry anxiety for news of air raids. Not that he gets much dramatic detail from his merchantmen friends, who | achieve an amazing deadpan detachi ment from the horror and death in which they live and work. “Yus. choom,” they tell us reluctI antly. “we’re getting enough food in England, although mebbe we wouldn't make a foos if we had moore meat. But • there’s plenty fruit and vegetables and beer We're really doin’ line." What do most *>l' them want to tak® beck with them ty England? Charley will tell you. because he does most of their buying for them. 1 “Gramophone record; and noo dance toones and jazz numbers,” he says. "They tell me they can’t get enough Broadway music in England. They all • like it. They all take an armful of re--1 cords and new music back with them.”