From SYDNEY SMITH
This British, ex-officer tells
the story of a journey that
could have led blm to Russla
Old Boy -that's
the password
T
Paris. A Russian
officer ques-
THE ordinary cross- tioned him in halting Ger- man and English. Captain Reynolds showed his Army records, his British port.
Channel ticket you buy at Dover can get you through the Iron Cur- tuin. All you need is a few shillings in your pocket and n knowledge of the "Old Boy" network.
pang-
He Wao taken into another room. A second officer arrived. After an hour's questioning he was satisfled.
AN
How to cross
the
That will get you across Germany. It will get you to a pleasant villa eight miles from B.A.0.R. headquar tera; villa with
A
Д red roof, ivy-covered walls --- N orderly brought in and six Russian officera vodka. The conversation be- come practical: And 50 --- who will offer you three
How would Captain Reynolds easy ways of getting be like to cross the border? hind the Iron Curtain with- out a soul in the West being any the wiser.
I know. I have talked to an Englishman who tried it.
sans suggested three ways:-
These so-accommodating Rus-
over.
GOT a British Army permit
to West Berlin, and walk
THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, AUGUST 30, 1952.
"Edward! Put those papers away at once!"
London Express Bervice
KARSAVINA AT 67
Ε
MERGING
retirement
after a A ballerina of the Tears breaks a
of 20
years Tamara Kar-20-year retirement-and survoys gavinn. great bal-
Intensity.
frocks."
now we go on work-
Then come the Ruselan revolu keep our lon Karsavina and her hus ing. We figures. I don't say I bond, who had been First Secre am as slim as I was tary at the British Embassy in during the pre-1914 Petrograd, pulled out of Russia Diaghilev seasons. In a horse-cart, bringing away the clothes, they But I haven't changed little except since the stood up. In. much 'twenties. I eat what
A year later, settled in London,
Wos
Go to Hamburg, and the lerina of the century thus the troubled road that led from His name is William Rey-
Z Russians would then get far, gave EL brilliant St. Petersburg to Hampstead HIII. nolds, a
retired British
him smuggled out in a Russian 90-minute mime recital the Army captain, from ship.
was the route other week before an in- great festivals of her faith with I like, I never have to alter my they were living in massive style. Pitsford, Northants. He is Or-and ils
vited audience of bal-
. Russian ballot
booming 39-a shortish man, with they favoured....
letomanes in the Rudolf It is 50 years this season since We discuss the material re- again. When Karsavina, accum glasses and a moustache.
IE could stay at the villa
with the wards of dancing.
When she paled by her husband, went to for a few days. A Russian Steiner Hall, Regent's Park, she made her debut
included Imperial Ballet in St Peters became prima
ballerina at the dance for Diaghilev in Paris He also had blistered feet, uniform would be given him. The programme
burg.
As she awaited her cue Marinsky in 1910 her pay was well as two maids, and left a took with them a valet as they because he hitch-hiked all He would be completely fitted passages from the Sleeping in the wings of the Marinsky 10,000 roubles a year, say £1,000, w the way from that villa, at out as a Russian soldier, and Beauty, Giselle and Sylvia Theatre, Guerdt,
servants behind her teacher, or bearing in mind low taxation hours full of Bad Salzuflen, in the driven over the border in a Red
At the end every made the sign of the Cross over ballets.
and living coots, the equivalent them in Thurloe Square, Ken- Army vehicle.
her, British zone of Germany,
02 £5,000 today. "I had an ex- Bington. In 1920 they made a Reynolds told them he was body agreed that Karsavina
Here limbs trembled. She felt cellent dat near the theatre. lavish home for themselves in o surprised they could take such is a prodigious actress still. Light-headed. Yet she danced Guess how much rent I paid.... Regent's Park, on
Nosh house to Paris.
the rim of a risk with the British border
At G7 she has crinkly, with regal calm. Her pas do Ten pounds a year." guards. That gave the Russian grey hair, vital eyes and adeus in a forgotten piece called a big laugh, he says,
woman's figure. They told him: "It's easy. young
Captain
Reynolds, you see, changed his mind after talking with the Russians.
PTEMPORARY POME TO TRAVEL DORTY IN-W.D. VEHICLES
"Who in 1 Wiry Cart
Passport to a free ride..
fantastic
And in Paris he told me the .story of his
journey.
He wanted to go behind the 'ron Curtain at the
We passed a couple of English-When standing around in men off as soldiers and crossed casual talk. she puts her the border with them only two hands on her hips and goes months ago, without question."
up and down on her tocs in
Stupid-but easy
IT
Atraight to British Intelligence.
"Well," he says, "I burned my bonis both ways, but I felt
a way that is second nature
to ballerinas. Always there
Queen Anne period, Bear the
Still Russian
M
RS Bruce rarely talks about
even.
by CHARLES
REID
she
Not Lavish
IFE is not so lavish “ now.
For her 10,000 roubles she danced during the winter only. Spring and summer saw her touring with Dlaghilov. With "Things have been dimeult for her Labulous partner, Nijinsky, many people since the war," says would occasionally break Karsavina. Gone is the retinue away during the London season of servants. At the Hampstead to work a private party at the house, with its 12 rooms, she Ritz, or in some ducal ballroom. contents herself with a daily help, shops most mornings in the High Street, dues all the cooking for herself and her actor-son
Altogether Karsavina has her hands full.
from hard Apart
Socially Sacred OR dancing the Spectre de la 1902 was the they were
Rose (eight or nine minutes)
pald £800
cach.
Nicholas who lives with her.
a10.
was the Russian attitude to is the itch to practise, the yavotte won an ovation from the the British that seemed like need to limber up.
front of the house and a nod of the lifting of a fringe of the Cur-
recognition backstage from the tuin to Reynolds. He realised
up-and-coming Pavlova, three stupid (and, probably,
the top years her senior. what a dangerous) thing he was doing. of Hampstend Hill. To some of That night in
the High Street shopkeeper's sho "After all, old boy," he says, is not Karsavina at sil, but he gateway to decades of triumph, Underwritten by the right sart work there have been griefs and mainly with the Diaghilev of titled people, Russian ballet anxieties. But one thing remains "I'm British and 16 good years Henry James Brace, whose hus- troup
sacred. untouched; her joy in the Her had become socially over Europe. British uniform behind me." band, at
troupe, all one time in Su he told the Russians he Diplomatie Service, died last greatness overtopped Pavlova's Could it have achieved anything At heart she is still the 17-ycare. There are few women like the same vogue In England, old who waited and trembled in on its artistic merit? the Marinsky wings 50; years with memories more consoling. purely preferred the Hamburg route. year, leaving £12,000. But he left the villa and, went.
But Karsavina says the is too Karsavina rather doubts it. busy to sit staring at her past. "Even if the day were twice as long I still shouldn't have time must tell that story of the twe Kursavina. Conversely, Kar- for all the things I want to do." British civilians who were sent savina is not given to chattering There are technical articles to over in Russian uniform. I about Mrs Bruce. There is, in- write for the ballet Press, scripts thought of Maclean and Burgess deed, a touch of aloofness, almost to prepare for radio, tight away, and of how easy it of austerity, about her. "I shirk casionally for television. There to go through the Curtain-for publicity," she explains, meaning is the Queen Anne house to run. anyone who's fool enough," that she shuns 11. On this point There are mime classes at a THERE ARE two sequels to the is not consistent. She has dance academy over in Holland this report.
slready printed 90,000 words of Park. THE STORY Reynolds told to autobiography. "In fact, old boy, I just British Intelligence has sharp- Her English, picked up by car had to clear out. I'm not a ened its interest in the mysteri-during 30 years of exile, is hard, Commie, but it seemed to ous villa at Bad Salzuflen and vibrant and occasionally faulty
express just anything by me I might have a chance in the activities of the six offi-ing a picturesque way. Uprooting tells her pupils you can has not blunted the Slav in her, glance and gesture, and proves for a new start behind the
what AND
-point of Reynolds? She cooks Russian dishes with her
with illustrative Curtain.
After hitch-hiking to Paris, he affection, using mustard and sour phrases,
As Karsavina Joined the French Foreign Le-cream as sauce for beef.
start.
"I left England because I had plenty of trouble and no prospects," he said this man who joined up as a private 16 yenra ago.
сета.
and oc
Glance, Gesture
goes through
"I landed at Ostend with pton, He put as far as Mar- In her lobby hangs an icon: these mimleries the youre fall in away. For an hour she is in her eight bob in my pocket, a seilles, and was then discharged plant-oyed Bussion caint
bright sea of gold leaf. At the heyday again. When Karsavina passport, and all my Army after a medical examination.
HE arrived back in Paris. Greek Orthodox church in Buck- was a girl ballers used to papers. I hitch-hiked and The Legion won't have me," ingham Palace Road, she prays retire on pension after 20 years borrowed my way to the he said, "so now what do I do?" for her fatherland; observes the and became fat as butter, "But British zone.
"But from the British
zone border onwards I travelled by the 'Old. Boy' network absolutely no questions asked, and help from everyone."
No check
CAPTAIN REYNOLDS
.
AMERICAN COLUMN from NEWELL ROGERS
ARE WIVES THE FORCE
ago.
BEHIND A PAY RISE?
New York, lord of the purse. Fewer than hopeful crackles in the New farm wito out of six man- York Time Magazine's lettor column. It is over the kind of
want
travelled 735 miles in THE averago American's arct
ages the famliy cash. side Germany, 343 of them income is now £585, tén Money is No. 1 csure of family man Ancurin Bevan is, and Essen- by War Department trans- percent more than a year rows, Not over how much they what makes him tick. port on an old pass which
have or why they have so little. tially anti-Christin and Marx- And no one is more But over how it is to be spent. ist, says Earle A. Nowman. Ndi nobody checked. On his way pleased than the women.
SENERAL
anti-Christian at all, replies J. Omar ho was given food, beer, and:
Bradley, E. Jones His quarrel is with The results of a national beds by, among others, survey show that women
Joint Staffs Chief, is to ap- the machinery of Christianity
used by the ruling clast": British Military Police. money more than men. Perhaps Pear with Josalind Russell in a scene of a fine comedy "Never the women made the men wen Wave At A Wacthe US, IT a grant of funds from And so he came to the harder to earn that extra Army giris, ¡t***
the Henry Ford Founda percent. spa town of Bad Salzuflen
The pollsters say that only on THE QUESTION of reviving tion the Chickhow Publi
printed 109,000 and the Soviet military woman in ten fools her husband the pubile whipping post for House, has
Russian books Bingo January. mission to Britain's Rhine should are last word in youths guilty of pre-alaning They prints 1, Russian claystem
spending his
on women New Army.
THEY FOUND that 32 per York, streets is raised by the not available from the Soviet cent of husbands have litle or World Telegram, It akys an uns Union; 2, books on Moscow The Russians' villa is in no say in how their money goer named "Roman Catholic prelate" black list a books by Soviet
oxiico: 4, translations of contem an unfrequented side rond. Factory workmen, let their is all for it.
porday Western writers Up fo Nobody saw Captain Roy-wives hold the purro - Hrings
more willingly then black-coated A LIVELY skirmists between translation
willer. l-nolds enter a aldo gato.
-workers, - On forma the man lettled faithful and Bevin Church).
Winston
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