What
a pity the
A
THE CHINA MAIL, WEDNESDAY, JULY 7, 1954.
politicians can't try a little glamour too!
GROUCHO BUTLER-
"PETTIPANTS' BRADDOCK.
-the dorting of the
contre court .......
MARLENE
SUMMERSKILL-
"You sure can't teach a grandma to such eggs!**
"It is more blessed to give than
"STROKE” MOLOTOV—
Star of Lake Geneva
To receive!"
The French political scene! Oh, that's been run by all the MARK BROTHERS for years.........
London Express Service
BADER DRIVES AGAIN
The day came when he had to cross the rood to meet a friend, and as he stood on the kerb a car whizzed past-and a wave of dread
chilled his insides
VITY
...with mother's umbrella
to push down the clutch
4011111111|2|ÆDAGOGETALII DE GUANTED LATER)|18||||||||||FABLETTOLTESER ENTE
help.
it
and again but it was three days before the was able to hobble n ecuple of steps without
feeling with the left kne would collapse at any moment, Apart from that, the strangeness was going and it did not seem He look to new difeult. crutches with rings round the elbows instead of pads under the armpits and they
more were manageable.
A
later came a milestone in his career when he was able to stump down the a bath-the corridor and take Arst since his accident. He had
T the end of January. the plaster cast, and above
Joyer said Bader this two metal arms stuck day or two could have a peg-leg up on each side, hinged on the left stump where the knee went and and try getting about with ending in a leather corset to crutches.
be a
stump would probably shrink inter.
be laced round the thigh.
worked out in advance how he it on the edge, unlace the pylon and then lower himself into it with bands on each side.
into the hot
would get into
water
11 felt very odd when he put Bader wanted to start off it on. The stump Atted neatly with a "real" artificial leg, inter the moulded leather, but it but Joyce said that would fell strange to the unaccustomed Sinking
waste because the skin, and the thigh corset gripped was cestasy and lie lay there a
Armly.
Sitting on the edge of long time. Getting out was not the bet with the little man, very difficult ether. When he Dorothy Brace and big trish heaved himself up with a hand nurse watching, he bent his knee on each side, he was surprised to waggle the pylon and get a to find how easy it was and re- Hittle used to i Brace passed membered that Joyce had told him a pair of crutches and said: him he would be about 30lb
"Now don't forget, you won't lighter without his legs. have any strength in that leg at all for a while."
The real reason was that the he had to operate on stump again to cul
more bone away, but he did not mention that.
A thin-faced little man in
One on each side, they helped a white cout came into the him up hom the bed to case his
weight on the crutches.
room next day to take A
Tenta-
For
scerned more
know of anyone who had lost sont a car to take him to their driving It until going through The Windsor Greal Park again he own hospital at Uxbridge. both legs and made a go of it.
I had affected nolleed that
band 11s mother said he was not to nurses worry because she had signed a than the patient; most of them throttle on the steering wheel. paper to look after him for the gathered on the steps, sume in it occurred to him that a hand rest of his life, and his insides sentimental tears, and he kissed throttle would spare the peg-leg
with seemed to twist at the thought of them all
cheerful to work the clutch. his enthusiasm and was
"I could driven off
drive this cor," he always being dependent on her.
sak.
"Pull
and let's have Lit Dorothy Brace noticed he was to face whatever the future held.
Jess
lew
the usual getting
days open and cheerful,
Feci very agreeably did so and and sometimes for hours would Service restrictions irked a little.
with his eyes open. especially the bot day he left the engine running while lie back
It worried stumped moody.
Douglas slid behind the wheel, threers she guessed what mite to
pressed the clutch down with Captain's for hmuse
"elevenses" and his peg, put the gear lever Inte
all struggled sweatly
first, and let the clutch up again, the way back to arrive five minutes late working the hand throttle, and
At the for lunch.
<loor a senior they moved off smoothly. wing commander. doctor, greeted him testify. "Oh, Bader, I do wish you'd try and be on time for meals, It's an awful nuisance for the staff when you people come in late."
silent and her because was happening.
Out of the blue he said to her one day!
"They won't have me back in the Air Force, you know. And
PART TWO
REACH
FOR
THE SKY
it would fit on the peg-leg had no strength at all. (he called it a "pylon"), a held him up while he shuffled short, smoothly turned each crutch forward in turn, and piece of wood, painted black like that they lurched all over the room, giggling. It seemed a and with a rubber pad
great joke. the bottom. At the top was
After half a leather socket made from red out.
In the garden
NOON he was Independent plaster cast of the stump tively he let his weight sink ✪ of outside help and spent the knee hours stumping about the garden. for the socket into which the pylon and
buckled like a piece of paper, It It felt really good to be moving
They
ruund again, and in the limited world of the garden the loss of
Further operations logs did not seem at nil serimas.
to shorten the
stumps, necessary and Bader spent weeks in a tor- ment of pain and delirium, they won't Later he tried again When he recovered his strength because they'll say
the mental battle started.]
own fault.
A good car
DUCO
011
an hour he was
deserves the best finish
Have your car
refinished in
CDUCO
Imperial Chemical Industries (China) Ltd.
*
the
Umbrella trick
of
NATHANIEL GUBBINS
A
T 54 Noel Coward is If readers had rememberçd reported to be "en- what he wrote lost January joying middle age." about the weather this June If he wants to know everybody but those who love how he will enjoy it five or cold, wet holidays would have six years from now (if that stayed at home during Whitsun will still be middle age) 1 There would have been no few traffic jams on the roads to the millions gallons of petrol would have remained in the pumps, millions of pounds
con
A
give him warnings that may cushion const the shocks to come.
Coward is not only a little saved and invested in Govern- mont securities, millions of younger but probably much gallon of British ica- fitter than Gubbins. The cream would
have gone
the drain (where it last time I saw him he look down ed lean and healthy. There should be), the millions of hor- rible teas aerved at horrible was no sign of the "fair rond-side cafes would have gone round belly" admired by into the dustbins, where they Shakespeare but detested by belong. those who own one. As he was not wearing glasses his Air
As it was, peoplo relled on the Ministry forecasts, which
sight must have been good. turned out to be hopelessly in- accurate, Interviewed, one of Thanks to his alim figure their famous spokesmen sold the he was light on his
feet. Ministry were "surprised" that But that was about four their fine, warm weather pro- years ago when he was 50. mises were misleading.
vision. you wear
Moore Gubbins, who on that
Although Coward will One of the few people in the probably escape the fair country not surprised was Old round belly because of his bleak January morning could Active life he will be lucky see an early June almost as if he escapes middle-aged bleak and wrote that it would This means that be cold with gales and snow on high ground and down the back bi-focal glasses, of your neck. Perhaps the bit walk downstairs gingerly, about the snow was an exag-
though nobody clinging to the banisters geration,
deny it was cold and windy. because the steps Aro out
And, anyway, there was anow of focus, and usually fall on really high ground like the from top to bottom if you Himalayas.
first wear them for the time at a party.
Са
In January O.MG, also fore- cast that the fruit crops would be ruined by frosts In May, may And what happened?
To quote from un agricultural correspondent, "This year's happened cherry, apple, and plum crops
Nothing much happen to Coward in the next few years but some
things strange to Gubbins after the age of 55.
Hair to grow where it had
began
never
grown before.
It first began growing inside his
ears in thick little tufts, like the grass off the
fairway on ů courge. golf This was
In due course Streatfelld sold: "It's four o'clock. How about stopping somewhere for a cuppa?" Bader saw a sign hanging out on the same
side as the car: "The Pantiles, Morning coffee. Lunches, Cream Teas."
Outside people, mostly elderly women, were sitting sediately ut little tables in the sun, sipping a iar ming TIS mother drove down from their cups and delicately prong- HIS
cake into their when Yorkshire in the family car ng big of for a fortnight and took him for mouths.
Streatfeild got out of the back a drive mest afternoons. The first time
his orm la a cradle and they went out she
Was with driving along a quiet stretch of they all booked up at him with
Great Windsor Park mild curiosity. road in
Peel stimy out of tho minute, clambered when he said: "Stop a
front peat with his con- passenger's Mother, will
said: spicuously plastered log, hob She stopped, and "Now let's change places. Ta bling with a pair of sticks, and
he
enough, but
sprouted
hair
on
the outside of
his ears Gub
bins was panic. thought
in He he
would soon
like an animal, and miser- spent able nights
like to have a crack at driving." the converging eyes softened in
develop furry nathy Before she quite knew what sympathy.
ears Streatfeild leaned in, took the was the was happening" he driver's seat and she was silung crutches out of the back and in the passenger's, saying: "But handed them to Bader as he got you can't. And what will happen out, and when the women saw the third cripple emerge from If the police catch you?"
"We'll have a damn good the driver's seat and prop him argument," he said. "Now, just self up on the crutches and a put your foot on the clutch, will single peg-leg, the eyes stuck out
like orgon stops.
more After she did the
car had a pre- gear (the
steering gear on the
By PAUL BRICKHILL YOU
give me a pension selector
Perhaps it would not have But the Court of Inquiry's lot it up."
nureg
the hospital garden
OT1
籍
vain protesta selected
Не So.
A slim girl
Bader was
80.
Cock lask
Lbow
Ticklay
Thump
"Thamp
← Crack
crack
chipes
où
tukley
ow ooch
Tennis Elbow
may
Car carding
:
It is also a pity that sintes-
wondering if he would have in Kent and the Vale of Eve- a long tail curled up in his sham will be well below aver-
when ho Was age.
Frosts and cold winds in trousers
May are blamed,"
As it is possible to be. Two other during prophecies were that water come accustomed to almost by the sage
polo would be played at Lord's It was my wheel) and said: "Right. Now No one said a word while the anything, fair round bellles, Instead of the first Test Match, She lifted her foot three hobbled to a table us bi-focal glasses, and furry and that the Oval would be used been to bad if everyone had not finding sikt adroitly round
the slowly, he pressed his peg-leg on though everything were quite
At the moment of writing there tried so hard to reassure him, question of blame, considering the accelerator and off they went, normal, sat down and distributed ears, Gubbins accepted his as an ice hockey rink in August. As they went along he worked sticks and crutches around them. afflictions with realgnation are puddles all over the ground He himself had accepted that he that whatever had happened out a drill
They looked for changing gear.
up as a waitress and had almost forgotten at Lord's and August is a long was legicss and in some ways the Bader had suffered more than He'd say: "Mother!""
arrived at the table and the in-them when, at the age of way off. future was challenge that was enough.
was
terest of all three quickened. Her foot would go on the That perennially
67, long ginger. hairs shot almost exciting.
Soon he was up in a wheel-
She was a slim girl with a stimulating aspect made him chair again,
and a week after clutch, he would select the new delicately modelled face and a suddenly out of his no- men never take any notice of eager to be out of bed and into that was soon stumping about gear, say "Right," her foot would sensitive, expressive mouth-trils.
the come up and that was all there very good jooking.
the writings of Old Moore Gub- the world to get at ti; also a lot on One day he went outside was to it, apart from practice, Arst off the mark, flashing his
blas. During the war he pub- of encouraging pamphlets had
This was frightening enough, lished predictions of a guided arrived
in the post from artificial- the main gate, into the world concentration and co-ordination. glowing smile, and saying: "Con particularly as Gubbins is not missile that would find its own. limb
maker! and they had braced agal
time, and as After a couple of hours the team we have three teas, please?" the first Ogain for
but ginger haired, work
the Anal target and of a giant magnity- him.
He had the feeling that he stood on the pavemenaked mother
was quite good and his
"Cream or plämm?" asked the humiliation occurred year ing glass which, suspended by enthusiastic. got his new legs he pocullar when he
became sensation of
Ciri
after when a single hair grew balloons in the sunshine, would would be able to carry
"What a pity you can only drive
·Bader said. (He on top of his nose,
but a whole country on - Grợ. reasonably normal
with a partner beside you," she me forgot the first words that
According to post-war reporta · said.
he and the girl spoke to cach Gubbins had often seen older. Hitler was working on both other. It always seemed such a ly men growing what looked these ideas and "The Burning ludicrously banal start.)
like a secondary moustache on Glass" is now a play by Charles As the girl went away Bader their noses, sometimes sweeping Morgan. rald
upwards to meat eyebrows as to the others: "And very Tilling nice too!”.
dense as thickets. But he had Old Moore Gubbins can only The girl came back with the never seen anything so strange think that while Hitler took him
atatesmen, if of and curved backwards like the they strained silence, conscious
road his prophecies, my being watched.
single horn on the snout of a thought he was being funny, to stay in the Air Force. One do
do it, waiting till no cars were umbrella do?"
As the strange wonderful
procession rhino oros. $8.50 leg. Two legs. No legal What in sight and the hobbling across
stumped back to the car every-
Perhaps they will think this Although Gubbins sincerely is funny. passed across her short, one gaped again, cepecially who hopes Coward will escape these One important day Dorothy
got Braco
and another
black
umbrella, a very practical the one with the peg-leg nurga
unsightly halimarks of advanc- into the driver's seat.
O.M.G, staring into his, crys called a taxi and tool him to a implemmt. He took it in his left
will tal ball, sees an entirely new With a grinding of gears the ing years, he doubts if hand, selected the next gear, hold cinema.
jerked into mation and entirely escape the rheumatic war weapon' that may be used As he struggled out in a tangle the wheel with the right while car
The pains which afflict those who in the future. It will be masa of pag-leg crutches and helping he felt for the clutch with the vanished into the traffic.
pass from middle age to what is hypnotiam over world television. 10.50 † YING in bed he had be- nurses,
people stopped and
pressed it down, let it up girl watched it go from the ferrule,
feeling that the politely called advanced middle he did not gun working out a way to stared;
see then again and the car had changed bold-eyed one with the peg-leg
-hatch
Whole nations 5.00 drive, his car again. The short until ho straightened up and gear smoothly,
be sent to sleep by an enemy right slump would probably not then the cod-ilke eyes seemed to Patients at Uxbridge were not had an arresting personality.
On the way back to Uxbridge
Therefore Gubbins has drawn television hypnotist who will 4.00 be sensitive or quick enough to hit him.
supposed to have cars, but Peel,
Bador-was both concentrating diagram (sco, fig.) showing start by announcing somebody's 5.00 guide a
working both
a young flying officer with
thinking about Coward where to expect the breakfast food. While they are on driving and had 1.00 accelerator and brake.
pains, what they feel like, and the girl.
their country will be in- an "old Humber parloed in
what they sound like, waded. They will wake up to ovan 5.00 left leg would.
(WOLED COPYRIGHT RESERVED) garage a few hundred yards
though he regrets that he can't find they have lost the war. “ILUSTERED İnces of pity and away and he singssted to Hader
offor any females. vacuous curiosity gave him and Streatfeild that they should
Even if you don't believe this, it in a much cosler conception of In
war than the bombs you are. worrying about. “All you need to go to war is a 8--6-=r. R-1«t mattress, a hot Henleks drink," and "a superius teles vision set. Then you wait for Manice mah" (with big liyanto
a insecurity suddenly welled up. on a lite,
He made himself stump not, but hundred yards down to the perhaps, playing rugger
other playing cricket (with a chap to gate and thankfully went Inside run when ho Was batting), again to the safe, home pasture. Stop for tea maybe some squash, certainly The day came when he had to walking and dancing (with
a bit
bit cross the road
bad to meet a friend,
DONDERING 'this of a limp perhaps), driving a and as he stood on the kerb o car, of course, and flying, too. No car whizzed past and a wave of ur only I had something to prod tea and laid it out in a faintly as this. It was strong and tough seriously British
factor, he thought out loud? reason why not. Flying droad chilled his Inaldies. It felt
was mostly eyes and hands and co- like stepping helplessly into a the clutch with."
"Well, dear, would ordination, not feet. He'd be able snakepit but he made himself
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the hell! He had strongth and as fast as he could. 15.00 balance and with the latest tin 25.00 legs he would be quite mobile.
25.00
35.00 Planning to drive
10.50
10.00
But his All right-he'd have the outside pedala trans- posed; work the clutch on the Fight with his right leg and use
"Yes!
That's
broken left leg in plaster, Leaves hospital
24.00 the left for both footbrake and the feeling of nakedness again, go for a mareptitious apa attes 15.00 accelerator. The seat would Au he ran the gauntlet across We
Allde
But gradually, the ɖion.
back on runners so that he pavement be heard a woman lunch when the doctors had could eilmb in easily and then say "Oh look, Jean, he's lost vatrated for coffee, the three 18.00 lock R in the deiving
both
cripples clumped down the road 7.30
of Dorothy Brace squeezed his to the can. Paal's blaim Urat he grave but well-meant encourage. hand and zaki:"
"Don't worry. could still tree; his plastered-leg mont began 10 have a sinister You'll get used to
the chitch pedal furned but tỡ They kept telling him in the middle of April, came be correct and cheerfully they SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST; LTD. about one-laced people who had the time to leave the hospital for cruised about the district. As
Нонакома
KOWLOON.
ale
00:
Made successes, but he begun to good. He was gill, the Air. the car had a normal seat lever notice that no onar semed to foros's weiponsibility and thay Bader had no sibitions about
back
"Reach for the Sky," by Paul Brickhill, la published by Collins,
26. SATURDAY
·Radar gets his new legs "and" "lament” to walk;
age,
7
Unhonoured
Prophet
...
I is a pity that nobody takes staring you arul-my: You are
tha (slightest i moties" of v tha" going to many prophecies of Old Moore. Citi», «Blog),, VENDEUR Almoh bins, the Flect Street astrologer, säverts.)