A
ASPECTS OF LIFE IN SPAIN:
YEARS BEHIND THE TIMES
M
By GEORGE MANNERING
a's
Madrid. Here in Madrid, every time ANY modern ad- you walk down the street you are ilable to trip over a spinnlag vantages which are top, or get your legs entangled taken for granted in in one of the inbolos with schoolgirl most of the countries of which every Western Europe are either seems to be ca
These pastimes are Indulged non-existent in Spain, or In by immaculately dressed operate at what most boys wearing snow-white sailor sulls, or girls in starched and foreigners regard shockingly low level of offered organdie frocks
cealing broderie anglaise peiti efficiency,
conts threaded with baby
lbbon, For example, in what other
Girls who in almost any European capital would
other country would be think- About job, or even And (as you do in every re- ing sidential district of Madrid) inarriage, merrily bowl iren or
dairles where r
wooden hoops along the pave ***n-the-spot"
ment, and boys of 18 happly play "touch" from free
to free in every avenue and park.
ond
you
yo watch
can stand on the pavement your daily milk Bund-produced supply betr front one of the 20 to 30 cows which are permanently tethered it it long, burrow stable wide upen to the street.
would
con-
And even teenage boys and girls have an extraordinary fear of the smallest pet dog, running to take refuge behind their musemaids' skirts whenever they see one coming.
Dogs aren't household pets as in Spain, although the yet custom is gradually beginning to become fashionable,
MEMORIALISTAS
In another of Spain's cities came across a curious survival from the age of ignorance-pro- fessional letter-writers
of the
And where else but in Spalu you hire half-a-dozen handcarts to nne-manpower carly your furniture and house- hold belongings when you move a new dut, or see diminu- delivering donkeycarts tivn goods to your grocer?
Where else. for that matter. crowded wilh are the streets housewives doing their morn- ing shopping accompanied by uniformed malds carrying blit Far East. wicker basketą, In which they
the clay'sind. home will take
anelent church, I saw a row of booths
like purcluses?
DISTANT 'DAYS
sizy and shape. It is in these And
where else is still that the professional scribes of by Barccions await their customers customary to send letters
of through the
Even hand instead
the with
spread of the letter-writers post, or to expect your smartly education
kind who still flourish in, the
Standing in the shadow of on nentry-boxes in
they
district chauffeur nat only to somehow keep going, although open the door of your car when
have lalely abandoned pic. for rickety, quills ft. But to turesque you enter or leave
does second-hand typewriters. stond cap in hand as he ro?
professional these
called. are
are elderly
men whose air of wisdom and by enhanced knowledge
It savours of the distant days before the First World War of 1014-0 But in fact that bygone era is still strikingly re- presented in some of the aspects Spain and especially among win's children. Squin'g
Nowhere else in the world find 20th you
of
The
medes
Cummings
THE CHINA MALA
RESPECTABILITY
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1956........
BLUE BLOOD
"You again! PLEASE keep away—people will think we're a Socialist Party or something.”
ONE SMALL BATTLE
THAT HE'S LOST
By DONALD GOMERY ·
SUPPOSE I should see whether Sutcliffe, who have joined tho was your hero, had scored Socialist Party many a century. In the winter years ago. I was of the you supported Aston Villa stuff that makes good because Wolves were in the
Third Division. Socialista.
There were the young days......
to
<+
And last thing at night you cut out another piece of cardboard to stick in your shoes next day.
Mr Jim Griffiths, by 30 votes over Mr Bevan, becomes deputy leader of the Socialist Party; he has won one of the battles of his life. But his present security and future power depend on his and his party's winning a lot more battles- millions of them: the battle for members and the votes that put men like Mr Griffiths
on the by pinnacles of politics. This
a new writer is the story of one battle he has lost.
the wonder, in fact, whether you turbing incident of notice on the Naafi board. had been a bit of a hypocrite
about this nationalisation. Perhaps it has nothing to do with this story at all, but You began to wonder about feel that it has, for other things. Why, for instance. you there was a thing called an intelligent man like Educational and Vocational Strachey, whose books on FIGHTING
Training which was to it Socialism you had read us all for a life of peace, and boy, could be so unintelligent THEN you left school and the notice said: "Debate to us to try to make us eat sneck.
one day you carefully night. Is Britain now sharpened a pencil at both second-rate Power?" ends to report a man who For
this some reason you extraordinarily was "C. R. Attlee, Deputy- made
Socialist Party," and this for you always thought of Britain Lender of the
angry, because you had
was a big occasion.
I would have joined the Socialist Party then if I known about such
You still lived in a "nice" house, though it wasn't easy
with Keep up
the mortgages, and you went to a "good" school because you had had passed an exam.
And things. in the mornings you stuffed cardboard into your shoes, spectacles and white hair. And though you knew it would it is obvious that their literate not last long in that rain." customers regard them with ap propriate awe.
You
were the only one will
The ellents century
sit opposite the who went out regularly in youngsters playing the games memortalistas, describing their thetr grandparents played, sentiments and
trusting to the the mornings because the dressed as
they though
were scribes to express these in others of the family were going to a carefully timed (and suitably impressive language, among the 8,000,000 who strictly controlled) walk in the The letter-writers used to do would not be going to work
and shepherded park,
really big trade in passionate by aproned und bunneted nurse love letters, which could be that day. Or the next day. inalds who look on though they ardered "with or without tears” had just stepped out of a 1801 the former costing ten percont
At night in the summer "family album."
extra.
you snatched up a paper to
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13
1
IL
I began to have, doubts about the Socialist Party then.
GRUMBLING
London Express Bervice
Can The Future Be Foretold?
To the candid opinion printed in the China Mail last Saturday that the future CAN be foretold by the stars - comes this equally candid reply by an author-barrister known to He does not believe in stars; but he does believe in ONE way to foretell the future......
millions.
I
tion.
THROW AWAY
THAT CRYSTAL BALL, MA'AM!
By EDGAR LUSTGARTEN
DO If CERTAINLY
a nation has a record of attacking its in- NOT BELIEVE that repeatedly
offensive neighbours whenever you can foretell the it commands sufficient military future by pure divina- strength,
I DON'T BELIEVE in astrology, with its pseudo- scientific charts and These so-called diagrama.
the
can foretell the future at least to the extent: given the military strength it will attack again.
sto
Such a man is Straffen. Such a nation are the Germans.
Now
to this capacity ΟΙ very horoscopes, if closely ahead us-acquireyi not as great, Tory Government You grew a lot older
quickly, and you never analysed, generally prove through any hocus pocus magic "Socialist Government, heard A day or two later you or
people,arguing about
·Inferences drawn Only grumbling vague to the degree of but through
from solid fact-ought to be a sharpened another pencil and you could not under politiks much.
ild not pointlessness,
glit of quite incalculable value. and went to report a man stand why anyone should be about politics. Polities
seem to matter much any more, named W. J. Brown, who so stupid as to suggest Though young people still 'Business worries are im- It could enable us, in many talked excitedly pending"; "An old friend cases, to control the future; to about whether will turn up." Has any nor direct destiny: to avert evil Johnnie Ray and
cart befall. But, Frankic Laine mal adult lived through any before It
of folly or was the better. normal week which would whether because
Inertia, It is a gift we throw (I prefer Fran- not loosely justify predie wontonly away. kic).
was
an
Independent
Socialist. Fighting talk. This
was the sort of thing the Socialist Party needed.
This was the same W. J. Brown whom you can now hear on TV outdoing the Tories with his Toryism.
So much then for the judgment of youth.
older
You grew a little very slowly, and you talked excitedly, to whoever would Haten, about Manchuria and Abyssinia and Iloare-and- Laval. Men shouted in the market square and waved their arms.
You were still in your teens. (There was no such word as teenager.) You still heard it said how wonderful it was that
DEPUTY LEADER
children no that she might be second- longer ran the streets bare rate-after winning the war even footed. Sutcliffe still scored too. centuries. And the Wolves
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You even
heard someone of
tions of this kind?
What man will not meet
your own age a dark woman in any coming
aay:
We shall year?
have to start
Lesson?
In 1952, when his next
W WHAT was dono with Straffen explaining who I DON'T BELIEVE that killing could be foretold with
Hitler was soon.
what some people call precision and with precision (After all, what instinct and others intuition could be stopped? Some one,
hado cared
about the Kaiser can define the shape of no doubt meaning well, must way back in the things to come. carly thirties?)
Sutcliffe
bad
long since stop.
Intuition
pea making INTUITION which most
centuries, and even Hulton
K&M c.
never meant the
Bu Wolves won first the Cup and
then the League. You still voted Socialist. You pasled a rather small yellow poster in your window one election. Rather sheepishly in But now you were home but all those blue notices again, Attlee was in No. 10, other windows looked so smug, and all was well with the world. Or would be.
DECIDING
occur,
have, sak "He has learned his lesson; he won't do it again." So Straffen was allowed so much liberty at Broadmoor that in due course, he escaped and destroyed another child,
What was done with tha women claim and some cermons between the two world work in wars, when their next onslaught possess may
23 stantaneously
events could be foretold with precision. but it has not the and with precision and resolu power to work in precedence tion could be stopped?
Except for a few lone voleas, of events.
England proclaimed: "They If a woman thinks she has have learned their lesson; they, met her fate on a first hand- won't do it again."
clasp, and she turns out to " Even a second German world be right, that may be war does not seem to have intuition.
greatly disturbed this majority opinion. As Sefton Delmor If a woman thinks her reports in despatches almost fate is waiting in the form German military caste and cult
the resurgence weekly
of the
turns out to be right, that is accident.
from the future which that
them to restore their shattered arms. They have learned their lesson; they won't do it again.
More sense
Actually you were not THEN Clem Attlee became of an unknown stranger he and spirit, so do we avert, our
because you Ear! Attlee You hated Hitler. You really home
and Gaitskell; tomorrow's party, and she eyes, and '"' amiably naist hated Mussolini. You were one of 60,000 on a took over as leader. And you hated Franco. You went city's housing list. But that thought: Now, at last, is the because
the Government's time to foln the Socialist Party. of Chamberlain, wasn't
NO, I can't convince my Real hate, Real tears. And fault. (Twelve months later A new leader, a new zeal. you thought how wonderful you were not so tolerant.)
But first you thought it all self that the future is to be it would be to fight in
And things were getting over. You thought it over for pierced by the employment Spain,
a long, long time. Right back of irrational or mystical done. Coal was being from the beginning. Hight up devices. But that is far from the nationalised, the railways to Jim Grimths. And you knew anying the future can't be I
were being nationalised.
1 almost joined Socialist Party then.
Then everything bolled over (of
you'd been right all along)" and you forgot about Parties.
course
WONDERING
-
it was no use, now,
that.
basically
of reason.
was truly said that we learn
from history that we do not pierced at all,
learn from history. The lessons ard there all right, but we 'do' Perhaps you had lost your
IT CAN, but by the not profit from them. spark. Perhaps the Socialist Farly had lost its apark. Per exercise, not the banishment, mental equipment, shows more The animal world, with lesser haps you feit that Socialism
Dance. I huve never heard of on antelope ALL sorts of things were was not just men sitting round
hanging round I BELIEVE that you can ger on the off-chance that he a tablo planning a new pro- being nationalised. Ono gramme. but something It was when Victory came
often foretell the behaviour, has learned his lesson; that ho... that you realised half a day you even heard it sug- must always spring
whether of persons or of won't do it again.
The antelope will have seen generation had grown up gested that Mr Bovan might from the emotions.
groups, by carefully study-
torn to bite, Perhaps you felt, there that knew nothing of the like to nationalise the news-
was ing their behaviour in the
maybe will have himself been prewar things that you papers. And that made you something wrong about
past.
chased within an ace of death. .up. Because you'd Smithfield, meat porters and the
Но know: who did not know sit
too, con
can foretell the future... If he stays where he is. Ha what all this business of worked on newspapers for so man in Coventry. politics was about. So you long, and it would be im Perhaps it was just that life
We have immense advantages little too easy now. told them about Baldwin's possible to work on news was
We have there
LET me cite two examples, over the antelope. sealed lips and the Means papers if they wero nation- Perhaps because
and FLOWEpapers and always a Friday pay packet.
one individual one collec. records and statisties. Above Teat and Appeasement and allsed.
all WB have Probably you'll go on voting tive.
the logical the coal owners,......
...
the
WEB
Examples
other antelopes
books
And you began to wonder socialist. Certainly you'll never It a man has a record of machines with which we think. I must have won a score how those other people in vote Tory. Maybe you would seizing opportunities for pur- Of course we can foretell the of votes for the Socialists those other jobs like nation vote Liberal if there was any posslessly murdering helpless future far better than he
little girls, one can foretell tha Much (good desni 15. Elo, un, A alisation. Sauce for the point in t
Future at least to this extents TOMORROW even further opportunities, be will murder mare.
CANDID OPINION:NOČAS
But you were not out yet, goose ought to be sauce for But, I'm sorry, Jins Griffitha, and there was the dis- the gander. - You began to z anani's be joining you power.
-