HEARTBREAK STREET

Waipukurau Press, Volume XXVIII, Issue 122, 18 May 1932, Page 7

HEARTBREAK STREET

THOUSANDS OF MUSICIANS WORKLESS OR WORSE There is a small drab street —Archer Street—behind the London Pavilion where a London tragedy is being played. It has run for a year or more, it is played every day, and none of the actors in it know when it will finish. They have played it too long. It is the tragedy of the skilled, musician thrown out of his job by the talkies, the wireless and the gramophone. Every day Archer street, where arc situated the London Orchestral Association and the Musicians’ and Artists’ Social Club, has its group of men, sometimes in their hundreds waiting for the job that never Some have violin or cornet, or clarinet cases under their arms; a great many haven’t because their prized instruments have gone to buy food. Hard Facts Here are some hard facts:— 12,000 musicians are out of work in Great Britain. A great many are ill; many are starving; others arc slowly dying of disease and malnutrition. A number have committed, suicide in despair. Musicians arc working with picks and shovels, ruining the hands whose Suppleness was part of their stock-in-trade.

Mr Frank Thistlcton, organising secretary of the Musicians’ Benevolent Fund, said:— “Never has such distress invaded the musical profession. The only out 1 look for a growing number is the Poor Law Institution. Most musicians cannot draw the dole, for they do not come under the Unemployment Insurance Act,’.’

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