ODDITIES IN BRITAIN

Wanganui Chronicle, 30 January 1948, Page 5

ODDITIES IN BRITAIN

SOME OF THE STORIES THAT GET INTO PRINT ALLIGATORS AND MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT

(From E. G. Webber.) (N.Z.P.A. —Special Correspondent.) (Airmail) London, Jan. >.. In>. these days of austerity newspapers there is no longer an open or closed “silly season” for the British press. It used to be the period when most regular staff writers took their holidays and the lineage men set out to catch the sub-editor’s eye. Today, with the compulsory increase in newspaper “streamlining," the subeditor’s eye is less easily attracted, but it still strays to stories which serve to offset the daily official peptalk. Take, for instance, the story of the two middle-aged ladies of Chertsey, Surrey, who keep two alligators and a crocodile in their kitchen. The exigencies of newspaper production are such today that stories dealing with the trifling eccentricity of keeping poultry in the bedroom or rabbits in the parlour pass inexorably towards the sub-editorial waste paper basket. But the fully authenticated tale of Miss Thelma Roberts and Miss Enid Davis of 31, London Road, Chertsey, who keep two Chinese crocodiles and an Egyptian alligator as pets, rated a full paragraph. The Chertsey Town Council was rather understandably concerned about the unusual guests at 31, London Road, and wanted them sent to a zoo, but to date the Misses Roberts and Davis are still continuing to run their creche for stray crustaceans. SEARCH FOR BED Then there is the story of 23-year-old Ernest Evans, 25 stone in weight and just under eight feet tall, and his search for a bed. The search for beds (and roofs to cover them) is so general in Britain today that it scarely rates as news, but Mr. Evans was judged worthy of a photograph when it was found that it required three six feet beds set side by side to snake him comfortable in a Middlesex hospital. Mr. Evans had hardly been settled in his capacious nest when the story of the Man Who Asked His Wife For. A Pound hit the overcrowded headlines. Large numbers of men have asked large numbers of wives for large numbers of pounds without reaching the top of the column, but Alfred Gilbert, the latest in the long run of Twists, allegedly made the mistake of throwing a hand grenade when the pound was refused. This break with tradition has landed Mr. Gilbert in the cells at the Old Bailey. NAMES And then there was the story of the Rev. William Alfred Gibson, vicar of All Saints, South Wimbledon, who refused the requests of two separate sets of parents to baptise their offspring in the names of Lettuce and Pansy. Rev. Gibson took his stand on the grounds that the offspring, being of less than the age of discretion, might not like these names when they reached years of discrimination. This was plainly .too good to miss, and one of Britain’s most noted columnists whooped into action with a full column entitled, “Why NOT Call Her Lettuce?" It was all strongly reminiscent of the censorious male (1948) who passed the time-honoured remark: “She has a figure like a sack of potatoes,” and was met with the rejoinder, "And what is wrong with a sack of potatoes?" EGGS AND POTATOES In the British list of 1948 conversation topics, eggs rank only one plac e behind potatoes. It was therefore not surprising that the Welshman who left his Merioneth farm with a hen perched on the bumper of his car—and who found it still there, plus an egg, when he returned from a two and a-half mile drive —achieved the distinction of what the printers call “a box" at the top of the column. So did the story of the Northants rat-catcher who emulated the Pied Piper by whistling rats out of their holes and who produced testimonials from satisfied customers to prove it. “Wcssat?” was the very appropriate heading given by another paper to the story from the village of Maesteg, Glamorganshire, where according to an indignant local correspondent, "American visitors mistook the town hall for a prison.” The Maesteg Town Council solved this difficulty by affixing the label “Neuadd Y Dref" to the outside of the building. “Neuadd Y Dref” means, in Welsh, “Town Hall," but of course the Americans should have known that. Other papers are being asked not to copy. The British people are very'ownerconscious now that they find they own their railway, which possibly explains the prominence given this week to the story of the engine-dri-ver on the early morning train from Hastings to Ashford who received a note from the wife of one of his new employers asking him to sound his whistle at a certain point on the line. “We rely upon you' to get my husband up for work,” wrote the lady, “and when you don’t sound the whistle, we are in a flx." “MY RAILWAY”

Another story concerning Britain's new-found railway owner-conscious-ness concerned the gentleman who boarded the guard’s van of a newspaper train at Kings Cross early in the morning announcing that h e was a Member of Parliament who bad been kept late at the House and that "we can do what we like with the railways now.” Cajolery, exhortation, and admonition alike failed to move him, until finally the stationmaster hit upon the expedient of detaching the van and shunting it into a tunnel while he sent for the police. In the meantime, however, a period of reflection upon the problems of railway management apparently persuaded the new owner that it would be better to leave without a meeting of shareholders. Of course, this chronicle could go on indefinitely, but it could very well end with a story from France in which the British people have taken a sympathetic interest. It appears that when Mr. Charles Chaplin created the title of his latest film, “Monsieur Verdoux," he overlooked the fact that a real Monsieur Verdoux was fathfully labouring in a Paris bank. M. Verdoux (of Paris) was understandably upset by the penchant for wife murder disclosed by M. Verdoux (Hollywood), and took the matter to his solicitors. He has now seen the film and remarked, with some understatement, "I am shown going to the guillotine. It is too much."