TRIALS OF A HOSTESS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVII, Issue 21508, 22 November 1939, Page 10

TRIALS OF A HOSTESS

ENTERTAINING COCKNEY CHILDREN What are the evacuated children to be called for short? The question is asked by a correspondent of “The Daily Telegraph,” writing from a Midlands village. They are known in some places, the writer adds, as “Vacks” or “Vackies;” but it is a point on which the countryside is not yet of one mind. Perhaps the countryside feels that its new guests belong to too many different species to be fitted with a general name. They range from “little darlings” to “little horrors,” while in between come all shades and varieties. Can one word embrace every sort of London child?

The fact that in the fifth week of the great experiment the villagers hereabouts are still tied up with the uncouth word “evacuee” is Suggestive. When some homely-sounding term has established itself for the purpose we shall know that the countryside has succeeded in the adoption of the city’s children.

On the surface all things look as usual in this comfortable country. Round the sandstone church the thatched cottages cluster like chicks about a hen. Between huge elms the Elizabethan mansion contemplates a pastoral scene that has not changed for centuries.

But beneath the surface unprecedented things are happening.. Three times on September 2, for instance, at the big farm on the hill, the bull was released from its enclosure by six-year-old Billy from Willesden. And on the same day the expression “I don’t mind if I do” was heard for the first time at Miss W.’s tea-table in the sense of “Yes, please." “Another piece of toast, dear?” was the hostess’ question; “I don’t mind if I do,” the answer. The expression suggested Indifference, and the child was not pressed further.

Somewhere in North-East London one result of the war will be that, thanks to Miss W., the phrase “I don’t mind if I do” will no longer be used to mean “Yes. please.” As for Billy, there is no bringing home to him the gravity of his offence. A new billet had to be found for the young rascal. He appreciates his notoriety. To the question, "And who are you, little boy?” the answer comes: “I’m the chap what let the bull out!” In the market town on Saturday mornings notes are compared by hostesses from half the country. The village of B. is delighted with its guests —girls from a secondary school at Hackney.

All that distresses this village is that the London schoolgirls are like Jack Sprat—they will eat no fat. When roast beef comes to the table only the lean is considered to be edible. This is quoted in the market-place as an example, among many others, of the Cockney’s sinful wastefulness.

Darker stories come from the village of “S.” The guests arrived bringing parasites. “S„” that model village, awoke early—very early—one September morning to find itself lice-ridden. It had probably never been in that a visitation of the plague could hardly state since the Wars of the Roses; and have caused a livelier shudder. It was no time for the formulae of ordinary politeness. Off the guests of the village must go then and there to the nearest washhouse to be de-loused. “S.” is a placid village, but its housewives that day seemed stirred by a kind of sacred fervour. They declared as it were, a Holy War, not on the human enemies of Britain, who were forgotten for the nonce, but on a subdivision of the insect world.