ON THE THAMES FRONT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24297, 14 May 1940, Page 8

ON THE THAMES FRONT

"We all know that Admiral Hitler dominates the ocean, with the exception of a small patch off the River Plate," said Mr A. P. Herbert, M.P., the English humorist, in a recent broadcast. " Field-marshal Boring controls the fresh air, and Dr Gobble-Gobble is master of the rest. London is starving, and England is living on seaweed torn from the rocks, the last bastion of British sea-power. All this we know. And, if there were any answer to these assertions, the censor, no doubt, would forbid it to be made. But we may shyly say that one or two ships still creep, with due apologies, into the Thames, bringing us from time to time a sandwich or two, a bag of nuts, a tin of petrol or a sack of coal. . . . Oxford at one end, Southend at the other, Westminster in between—in this old river flows the history, the heart, the harmony of our race; and we are content indeed to be 'standing by at the heart. Big Ben the clock on our mantelpiece, and the watermen of London river our companions. And if Admiral Scuttler and Field-marshal Boring and Dr Colly-Wobbles himself propose to bring the war this way. then every servant of the-Thames will answer: ' Come on! for London river is ready.' "