GENIAL COMPANY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22949, 29 January 1938, Page 4 (Supplement)

GENIAL COMPANY

GIBBONS AT HIS BEST The author of "My Own Queer Country," Mr. John Gibbons,*a man in the fifties, who has seen many countries, and written about them, now turns to the discussion of his native England. He is genial company, and his book, which is occupied largely with memories, and in contrasting the social conditions of the 'nineties and early nineteen-hun- ' dreds with those of to-day, has much of the quality of pleasant conversation. He wanders easily from topic to topic, beginning with a scene in a Leeds music hall/ where once ho was watching a comic juggler when suddenly the band stopped, the manager stepped to the performer's side and began reading something aloud—the announcement ot the death of Queen Victoria. Mr. Gibbous lias a keen relish of life as it was in England, and especially in London, forty years ago, but.that . does nut mean that he ignores its defects. Indeed, in most respects he considers that conditions have changed for the better. There is more decency, and when the last of the music liall promenades was abolished the necessities of wartime •were, ho holda, merely the excuse, the real reason being that "we were sick and tired of the old ideas." The English, are a soberer people, too, unci Mr. Gibbons Bays that bo docs not know anyone who wants the long hours of public house opening back again. loojLand clotmng, also, have improved, and the English, middle-class girl has i gone tip about two hundred per cent in physique in the last thirty years." ~ . Queer Country," by John Drawings by John Lewis, (ilethuen.)