THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, JULY 18, 1957.
A week I shall NEVER forget...
• Margaret Dixon, a polio pati cut dependent for seven years on an iron king, returned home to Fleetswood, in Lancahsire, after achieving her great ambition, she had spent a week watching the Wimbledon championships on the Centre Court. She is 23, a girl of invincible cheerfulness, with a radiant smile. Apart from her head
and neck she can move only her fingers.
THE
MYSTERY CLUB
No. 5 in an exciting new series
A change
face
of
VERY branch: of the medical
profession,"
Byntt told the
Mystery Club, "has its own peculiar ethical problems. Elrick must be aware of a good many of them."
The lawyer nodded, "Mostly problems of confidence, aren't they? But others as well."
■
"Certainly others as well.. And my own job, which is that of plastic surgeon, produces some queer 'ones. Most of my time, of course, goes to straightforward work repairing the effects of accident and injury.
1 "But there is what's popularly called the cosmetic side. Some chaps simply run a high-powered
Loudon Japreza Servis
He certainly had a boss with which a lot
could be done,
beauty parlour. Well, good later, I was visited secretly in luck to them. You can gen-ny hotel by a wholly surprising uinely promote a woman's personage. He arrived in a hat well-being no doubt, just by an overcoat so shabby that he doing something about the had difficulty in getting in. shape of her nose.
That sort of thing happens never to have been a great line of my own. Ist summer, how- evce, I was askel to do some thing abou! a nose and well being certainly cane in"
Erick askeyt.
"A woman's well-being
"No. A nullon's Or that was the story.*-
We pli looked at the surgeon in surprise. "I imagine," John Appleby sald, that this wasn't very near me?"
It was in Rurimin. 1 call
the country that benuse the name gives you inost of the re- levant associations. Only the Raritonia is a republic-os 1990s a republie when I arrived there on holiday.
.
of the job lay in the fuel that the technical dieulles Toolsed like being considerable.
זיי
GUAL
"But I satisfied myself that Count X had adequate facilities available in an obscure nursing "But once safely in my room home in a Zigzag suburb, He threw these off, and i saw a
received there comical venerable' aristocrat with ex- rather
slate by two quisitely groomed silver bair - mote aristokratie-bolting per and round his neck really sons, who conducted me into a startling gold chain, le pointed sort of improvised throne-room, to this and introduced himself dominated by an oil-painting of as Count X, High Chantertain the Prince's grandfather.
King
a
to the country's lawful monarch, Igor the Tricenth. King Igor the Fifteenth.
Byatt paused on this, and I couldn't help laughing. "My dear chap."
Romantic X
"He was a massively bearded
I naked. "wasn't gure, and the beard worried that very much the idea?"
me. It plucked, so to speak, at "Couni X," Appleby added,
some recollection I just couldn't having an eye on your pro- fx. but which I fell to be rele-
fessional services?"
Byaft sled cheerfully. "Just thal,” he said. "We'n say that the count's story quite fired my imagination. Whether It al- together satisfied my intellect is another maller,”
"I believe i was the 1
"I began," he went on, "by foreigner allowed in for quite le
mertoning medical ethics, Lime.
"There were three important Whether what I agreed to do with them, I really
#quared
Colonel N
Parties: the national democrals, don't know, the democratic nationalis's, tu the monarchi!!!s, And it wasn't quite clear whether the national democrats or the de- mocratię nationdials were in power, What was quite un inistakable was how much they bated each other.
"A frst I found It merely pinusing. In Zigzag. the capital. people were marching in ragged processions all day.
And then the young man came vant to my present enterprise.
in and received me very grac-
lously.
"He wasn't, as a matter of fuci, quite so young as I expecl- od. But he certainly had a nuse with which quite a lot could be
Within done. And I did it.
a
month my work was done and I left the country.
wis
"Count X presented me with a respectable cheque on a Lon- don bank. And he assured me that when His Majesty "Well, what Count X told me happily restored, I should im- was this. His royal master was mediately receive the Order of in Zigzag at the moment, pre- the Chimers, Second Class." pared to place hlaself at x. Warriner was amused at this. head of hle supporters, and put "But you never did?" both the national democrats and the democratic nationalists in their place.
"No. And the monarchist coup just didn't huppen. I must admit that 1 wasi't grently surprised. And now, I dare say, some of you have tumbled to something like the truth of the matter?"
**There were proclamations
That dkin't nean, apparently, and strike: fund Inlilt
In aol, for this amiable young tumbling on top of each other: prince was full of the most and it way possible to pee the liberal emvtetions, I felt pre whole thing in a comic-opera pared to wish him well. And 1 There was a short silence, and light. But no, for long. At was quite distressed when I then Appleby spoke. "I think bottom, of course, it was no heard about the snag.
you said something Laughing matter. I dare say
beard?"
"Exnotly.
ot
come of you know the sort thinit. and the kind of sights that got one down."
Q Babies
"Quite so," Warriner, who is in the Foreign Service, spoke from the bottom of the fable.
about Q
What had eluded
n
"The stag?" Eirtek asked, "Prince Igo had already made one bid for the throne my recollection was this: Prince and it had tone hopelessly Igor's grandfather, like many of wrong. A year before, he had his line, WIS '1 haemophiliac. entered the county under the He wore a beard ecause ntine of Colonel Ñ, and led a
been a very dangerous accident, single cut shaving would have
"His grandson would almost
inherited certainly have trouble-which meant that operation ought Infallibly to have killed him.".
"In fact, it wasn't Prince Igor
monarchist uprising under that discreet nom de puerre, It had heen disastrous failure,
"His followers had done some "Kids wandering round because rash and indiscriminate shoot- their parents and uncles and Ing: and Colonet N. whose op: aunts are all in quod. Public pearance, nervices collapsing. Babies cek Jenown
hospitals,
hod become well
the My
JA Zigzag, was to you operated on at all?" ting themselves born in queues universally execrated that outside the
"It decidedly was not, while Prince Igor-who was supposed, Count X a couple of months ago I met loudspeakers bellow politics of course, to be still in exile in New York not looking eloquenco overhead. Haven't had to disown him.
Bech it!
Byatt poured himself out glass of port,
"I had in talk with our Charge d'Affaires, and it
opinion quite off the record
He wea nearly so aristocratic, "Bu as soon te the prince kind enough to thank me for presented himself in his own helping to get the porson now he would at once democratic-rationalist
fugitive be recognised as Colonel N. Krambec, fely out of
leader, the Ms And his supporters, sounding country. WAT
opinion in Zigzag, concluded. that the country's best hope lay that the old feeling against had got across the frontier with- “After my attentions Kramber Д restoration' of the Colonel N was still so strong
the that this recognition monarchy.
slightest of his out attracting "The pretender to the throne Identity would be fatal to the suspicion. And he had nothing was a young man callca Prince prince's cause,
quent, altempla ai assuralnation, since none of his enemies could recognise him."
to tear in the wo
of shine-
ite
X and his
Igor, who had lived in exile "But the appearance of the since early boyhood,
being prince, remembre, was still vir educated. In complete retter titntly unknown in his country, ment. Hardly anybody had Hence the proposal that Count Byatt reached again for #hd ever cet eyes on him, but he x put to me. I was to operato decanter. "My story has Was known to be a cložite upon the young man so that he friends clearly reckoned that I'd
bumiliating alde. cort of lad, with some sensible would no longer
Icast as the ill-fated Coloriel N fall inuch more readily for "Where Prince Igor was 4- hath looked,""
"prince than a pollician. So they the moment, nobody could tell, "And you agreed?" Erick put, you might may, « romernic
idcnet
But there was a rumour thuật asked.
toos in tho
his supporters were preparing I did. It can't be said that
some sort of coup.
I. wholly believed the story
All the was Interesting, but although my mure that I'd have no atrast Zot mine.. Or ab I liked to. Bónghsistil, a couple at nights "And part
·
than calfamelices.
face on the matted."
NEXT WEEK
The Tinted
Diamonds:
WHAT a change in my letters to toy friends.
life the past week has been. For seven years, a mirror eight inches by six has given me most of my view of the world. But for five days I have been lying with the wheels of my in- valid carriage almost on the turt of Wimbledon's Centre Court.
Old friends
I have watched the world's finest players. I have taliad to them they seemed like old felends, RD well do I know their ans and their faces. Ticy have autographed The Inble-cloth which will be my must cherished souvenir of Wimbledon,
My eight-by-alx mirror is at tached, over my head, to my fran Jung.
Iron, though, is a misnamer. The lung a ply- wood box, with a row of litte
hatches and doors, u hole for my jhvod, and a pipe connecting it to the motor and pump which ruft and blow for me when I need them. Only once have I been in a lung really made of iron. That was in an emergency in hos pital. The apparatus was out
1 can
read; my father fixed an ingenti-
ous nisingement of mirrors so that I can see the page_right way round, and I have an electric page turner which I work with party: my frlerids cram hito the iny chin. Botimes · give a room and play lanes around my lung.
de sig varies.
The length of time I can leave While I have been in Wimbledon, I have been out of it for six hours or more at a stretch. On the 731⁄2-hour Journey to London from my homo in Fleetwood, my lung, with myself inside it, travelled in a guard's van. In an emer- but fortunately I did not need it. Rency It can be worked by hand, The engine driver was most con- siderale; he blew the whistic three times whenever a tunnel Was near that my parents could Ahut the
windows to prevent smoke upsetting my breathing.
While I have been in London I have learned à new accom→ plishment culled frog-breathing. This is a method of lapping up air Into the lungs with a land- gue motion, like eating on A few days ago invisible cake.
I could count only up to 12 without losing breath; now, by frog breathing. I can double that, It should help to make
of repair and draughly. The me less dependent on the lung. nurses had to siop the links with sticking plaster.
A rocking bed
This
lesson I learned in a
Though I can twist my head to look sideways, I see best the things behind my head, in my mirror. Liko Allee Through the Looking Glass, the world I see single day at the Western Hoe- is left-handed. An exception is pitol, in Fulham, where I went my television, An ingenious to see an eminent specialist in mechanic reversed the wiring so respiratory problems. There, the pleture comes out backwards, 100, I tried various types of It is my parents who have to lung, and a rocking bed which put up with pianists who ap- lipped me up and down like s bear to play high notes at the seesaw, with the same effect wrong end of the keyboard. as a lung.
Even in my plywood jung, there is much I can do. 1 của talk on the telephone. I dictate
Ou my vinile to the All- England Club I have boon treat-
Log MARGARET DIXON
Police.
ed almost like royalty. men stop the trafle for me, Each day the Servicemen who act as ushers bring me a ́sprOY of Aowers,
Ambulance men have cheer fully moved me from place to place. Newspaper sellers drop free coples my knees as I 1905, Whorever I go there pic
FLY BY B.O.A.C.
· Pagë
alles, greetings and phalagu- pheni.
What a wonderful work it has been. I ahni never forvin it. (Lordon Expisi Barbice).
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