Page:
"O course, the girl has
the table-manners of
an animal," said the finish-
ing school proprietress.
primitive."
Below us lawn
BEATHC GRIMAULT
THE CHINA · MAIL, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 26, 1957.;
Will Berthe
thrive
among the
debs?
BOOKS by ROBERT PITMAN
in the aisle.
Then how is it that Berthe the
"She is primitive, utterly comparison the starkest Ewing's young ladies somewhere books by such grown-ups as a well-shaved Steinbeck read like hand- stretched smoothly outs from Lambeth Palace. into the sunset,
Berthe is now 17. With We were sitting on the her royalties her hard- terrace of one of Kent's drinking father has paid most stately houses,
off some of his debts, but
But we were not talking she has not got much about any of the well- ft. connected young ladica
bene
(ages from 16, fees from
Golf, too
£370) who were
dressing
for dinner in the elegant rooms behind us.
She rises and goes to bed with the sun because her We were talking about a girl who looks after the family have no other light. goats and pigs on a primi. In Kent she will have les tive farm in central France. sons in deportment, in golf; We were talking about at dusk there will be bridge Berthe Grimault, the semi- and musical appreciation. literate French peusunt, who This week-end I spoke to three years ago stirred all the proprietress of the Europe by scrawling out a school, Mrs Orr-Ewing strange
and terrifying (until her second marriage novel at the age of 14. she Was Mrs Boyd-
Bowman).
Murder
Mrs Orr-Ewing is noted as an exponent of gracious Berthe called the novel living. She is the only Beau Clown (published here Englishwoman who has by Deutsch, 100. Gd). mastered the ten-ritual of Harshly, fascinatingly, it Japan. told a tale of poverty, lust, murder, lunacy set on a farm which was the mirror image of Berthe's own.
Though her drcle of pupils In London is mail, it is select. hardly a society wedding takes In place without one of Mrs Orr-
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peasant girl is going to be one of those young ladies?
"She is coming at my pense,“
Mrs Orr-Ewing told! "You
I first read me. about her and that dreadful farm this spring. I decided
that I might be able her. But of course -see her first."
Mra Orr-Ewing saw
a few weeks back.
"I flew to Paris.
MRS. BOYD-BOWMAN'S
"ANISHING SCHOOL
THE GOY
cx-
The school in Kent
to help I had
to
where Berthe will live,
rather sophisticated Brazilian, At the moment I am cutting down Berthe dresses for her. She is very caell. At the end of July we have a big ball. I do hope she will be ready for it.
She was brought there with all the people connected with her. Bu in my hotel room.
I insisted on seeing her
"The poor child SAW negligee and my slippers, she was quite fascinated. couldn't understand
were for
alone
my
"The other girls are so FX-
THE OLD CAMG.
Pineau
LACOST
BOURGES- MAGHOURY Triax Minster Denguate
Franck NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
Cost
iranding Algerian
klar
420000 foooo.
recco
TEG
Fruell
“It is not a red carpet, monșiour, it is the bill left by your predecessor.”
London Expzja Service
A RISING TIDE OF HATRED AND REVOLT
THE
Dark
Copyright in
all countrR
By D. Compton-James
Continent
cited. They are terribly imHE Mau-Mau iden, suppressed in East Africa, has sown pressed that she has already
its seeds in all parts of British Africa. In Zululand written two novels, But I have|
In Basutoland the and not let them read the novels, of there is a new cult called Bokoma.
witch-doctors have crept back into power and have even persuaded high-ranking chiefs to participate in ritual murder.
She course.".
what they
to see the "Berthe wanted Eiffel Tower, so I took her In the restaurant she there, way amazed by the orchestra. Then the plano played a tune which she seemed to know.
'Pathetic'
"I said: 'Do you know what that ta? She saki proudly: "Yes. It is a piano,"
"Pathetic, pathetic."
In her swing-seat on the ter race Mrs Orr-Ewing sighed.
"Afterwards
Berthe wanted
to buy one of those models of the Eiffel Tower: I've got 10 france, she told me. they got one for that?"
'Have
"I bought her one for 500 francs. When I saw her next. day, she was wearing it on cord round her neck."
D
Who
Berthe have helped Grimault before Mrs Orr-Ewing stepped in?
TER PARIS PUBLISHER has helped. Ile is M. Jullard, a specialis; in teenage au- thoressen. Ife discovered Fron colse Sogan (when she was 18) and Minou Drouet (when che was 8)..
In
BUT THE POSTMASTER Berthe's local village claims to have helped most of all, His name is Elizier Fournier. is in his flies,
He
Ho Arst spotted Berthe's story-telling talent. Ho first persuaded her to write the alories down, He helped to get the published.
He also shared in the royal- #es.
1 asked Mr Orr-Ewing about Fournier.
"Oh, that man,' When he heurd about Berthe coming here, le coolly announced that he was coming too. He isuot a state- ment saying he would be here with her helping her with hor novels.
شد
'Fantastic'
"Of course, that is out of the question.
Her
"He has all sorts of fantastic 18.00 projects for her. At the moment 18.00 he is getting her to write a book 25.00 about Suez, of all things. 8.50 talent could be ruined" 25.00
IG there any chance that 35.00 Barthe's talent could be ruined 7.50 at the finishing school too? Mrs 7.50 Orr-Ewing bopor not. She told
mo: "It is a wonderful oppor-
5.00 tully for me having to educato
her
this giri completely from scratch, 10.00 fool like a sculptor with an
4.50 unhown block of stone," 1.00 3.00 And if the final Pygmalion
not fulfi 1.50 product does
hopos?. "Even then the ziri will not have suffered. She will havo 30 learned shorthand evping. Thin 30 wil be better than dreadful :30 form."
1.50
Stamp Albums
Ton Points About Pearls.
Points on judging jade
Outline Relief Map of Chins
Moomin Music Sheet Korean Artists
SOUTH CHINA MORNING⋅ POST, LTD. KOWLOON
HONGKONG
On Sale At,
Very small
2.00) 12:00
When Berthe arrives?
"She will share a room with channing" Engliski, j02 and a
OI
course, Berthe's steond ovet has not yet been issued in Britain. But one solemn com-
In South Africa, the crime rate Illustrates how the ancntator reports: "It is an ne-de of revoit is rising. Since 1912 the crime rate per count of the madness that over-thousand of the population has doubled. The big jump taices a girl who unintentionally came in 1949 when serious crime showed a 55 per cent in kill her leglumalo chlid and crease over the 1948 figure, foods Its body to the pigs."
FINISHING SCHOOL FOR BERTHE
It
Her agent, Odette Arnaud says of their first meeting: "She was little more than an animal. took me two hours to make her talk, and then only by coaxing and giving her chocolate..
The school where Berthe is to spend at least one year is a 300-year-old house in the Kent village of Seal, Fees at the school are from £370 a year.
Berthe's mentor, the village postmaster Eliozer Fournier who shared her profits, has said: "Her complete lack of any sense of chastity, coupled with her ability to invent, first made me realise her gifts of observation and imagination."
Says the school's headmistress, Mrs. Muriel Orr-Ewing: "She takes an enormous delight in her new clothes, I think that is a very good sign. We always change for dinner.
"Luckily I was able to fix her up with a blouse and a ballet-length skirt.
In Bertha's first day at finishing-school she wrote, In her diary her impressions of the journey from Paris and she had an English lesson and a French lesson.
Says M. Fourier: " had to tone down some of the "crudities in her language
Her stories were full of violent scenes, drunkenness and child- birth.".
Mrs Orr-Ewing took on the schooling of Berthe because she thought it an interesting and worthwhile thing to do,
Says she: "She is desperately keen to learn. She already seems perfectly happy here and is not a bit shy with the girls. Berthe has seen nothing but the ugly side of life. Now I wont to show her there. is beauty, too."
• Can a primitiva, semi-literate peasant girl be changed into a woman of elegance and culture? Will this remarkable experiment at one of England's most exclusive finishing schools lead to triumph or tragedy for the genius of little Bortht Grimault?
Pictura shows Barthe Crimault, and Mrs Muriel", Orr-Ewing in the garden of Mrs Orr-Ewing's finishing school
In all the big cities of Africa, serious crime is rampant. Every night pro- duces its crop of murders, rapes, burglaries, assaults, and robberies-usually with violence. It is
unsafe for
a white woman to go out unescorted after dark. Street lights are kept burn- ing all night. Every rural. house keeps a large dog and advertises the fact with
that your
found
dead. Ho had three apartheid is rigidly enforced in knife wounds. A lift to a actual servico of customers. hospital might have saved his Europeans can always jump the uite.
queve, no maiter how many blacks are waiting or how long Arrived home, you perform they have been waiting. Gener the locking-up chore with the ally it la the application of feeling that you are barracading apartheid by
unimaginative yourself in for the night. You officials that causes trouble. We
that potential burglars all almost will
be all get annoyed on occasion with certainly
Des. Imagine what your prowing round and you hope post-office and railway employ- feelings defences are good.
of the Before get into bed, I take would be If, on top
office clerk or railway employee, the loaded pistol from my hip normal indifference of the post- pocket and silp it under my pillow. The pistol is to protect he felt tha: it was, in any case, below his dignity to serve you. our persons, not our chalicis. Often the octal cannot be bothered to give change: for the black customer it is quite fre- quently a case of produce the right In money or miss your train, apartheid the main trouble is caused by its trivialities; tho principle is accepted by the blacks
to violence, apparently for African burgiare often resort
no
reason other than that of giv- tag vent to their racial haired,
READY COCKED
In a rural
ours, a retired
CATO MANOR
like house just
business mau was awakened by the pressure of rough hands at his throat. such notices as "Beware of Four black men were in the Fierce Dog" and "Beware of room, While two of them In South Africa, crime is uld- Savage Dog." Africans were pummelling his 65-year- ed and abetted by the existence old wife, the okt man fought of terrible native, slums, During make first-class burglars: his way to a cabinet where he the last ten years some two mil- everyone is a natural-born kept his revolver, but with two on natives have drifted to the flannel-foot. Every insur- blacks hanging on he was un- towns in search of
Work Africa able to cock the weapon. This company in
about one million makes a loss on its bur- a why I keep my platoi under are adequately housed indus
the pillow, ready cocked.
trial towns have attracted large glary insurance business.
foreca of cheap native labour. Noto particularly that tour without providing accommoda- men could break into a house tion for them, without disturbing the inevit
BILCO
TABLE HIGH
these,
only
able dog, and And their way In Durban this produced the about a pitch-dark bedroom native alum known as Cafo At my African home, we without waking two alcopers Matior, where 30,000 blacks keep two dogs, each table until they chose to do so. The lived in one-room shacks not at high and each capable of day obstacle is not too difficult
When my for duty as garden-sheds. There mauling a man
Overcome. to death, to
daughter's
absolutely no sanitation and house was buried, only a few water-taps in the One dog sleeps outside the the day was kept quiet with a whole 4,000 acres, Many of the
was
front door, the other just. joint of meat Laken from tho w inside. The enormous quan- fridge.
I WILL REPAY
natives living in Cala Manor were hardened criminels, Police raids were always regarded as major operation involving the use of armoured cars. Imagine living check by jowl with such
tities of meat they devout |constitute an additionni bur- glary insurance premium. The house was built to pro-
In another Cand (there ard a best of crime, tect itself against burglars. more than 100,000 crimes Inside the casement win against property every year in In East London, too, there are dows aro strong mosquito South Africa) in elderly in- native slums where dwo: out of frames a second line of valid and her brother eat on a every three children are illegi
bed expecting that every mo- Uimate or worse, where one baby window defence. Window-
ment would be their last. Both out of every three dies at birth, sills alope downwards, not were drenched in their own and where the communal lava- only to shed the rain but blood, having been brutally tories have to be cleaned up also to afford less grip for beaten by four natives. Their twice daily at the public expense. black maldservant had been Both these towns pay dearly in climbing fingers. Outside specially fetched from the kill crimes of violence for their pools the windows are brick-built chen to witness the humiliation of cheap native labour. flower-boxes containing a of her "white folk'. Theod shrub whose pretty red months
woman died from her injuries. NO EASY ANSWER flowers
are less important than its sharp thorns. This violence is, in part, re- Should a burglar break payment for the many acts of into
by whites against blacks.
outside of the doors.
UM
later, the
vicious
Dr
elderly
There are other causea of
A the natives. Exploitation
by
معلم
a ground-floor room, violence committed in the past friction, such as exploitation of he has to break out again cortal type of colonial has Indians caused the Durban clots before he can go any fur. always believed that the only of 1940. The authorities took ther. All the ground-floor way to handle natives is to use steps to prevent further exploits rooms have bolts on the the whip, and the African whip tion. An Indian grocer was fined ambolt made £200 (or six months) for over- trom rhino hippo hite charging twopence on a pound of Thirty-odd yourd Dgo in rice, we, Indian women were On the surface, the night Tanganyika I saw many flog fined £100 each (or six months) life of the big cities seems ging natives for compara for overcharging sixpence on a to be quite uninhibited. vely trivial offences In Cape dozen bananos. These sentences Crowds stream, in and out Town I saw a troop of young are cloquent of the fear that soldiers from: Jo'bung whipping Indian exploitation might sef of of places of amusement and the coloured folk of the pave another riot they re the neon lights twinkle ments, for the offence of walk eloquent of the puerility of the choorily. There are plenty ing on the pavement instead authorities. of people on the streets, of in the gutter.
Exploliation of natives-lazmot Today there a less violence confined to Indians. Europeans couples in evening dress,
but girls în dance frocks,
on the part of the white man, also exploit them, but less overt- when you leave your chosen but the memory at it remaina. iy. What can we say of an Also there is apartlicid, a noce advertisement which piterunder place of amusement, you say principle because some na- black girls to we "Sho-write" drive straight home, stop five are just not fit to mix with face cream? ping for no one, no matter whites. As ever, it is not the what the plea
main principle which causes
There is no cany: solution to trouble, but its minor aspects the native problem in Arier. One" night, Just astaldo Apartheid expect itself in The blacks will not try open Joburg, many home-returning many ways special", railway, rebellion, because they have materiala, passed an elderly compartments for whites, special aready, seen ine tank and the European, kneeling in the guts platform seals, separate evinters, machine-gun in sellon, that they |000, aring spilfied" is daromiring for blacks at post-offiom, etc. will carry on a quella warfaces supplication, No sue slopped. Not many private, shops adopa of violent crime and Carop by