Page G
THE CHINA MAIL, MONDAY, JANUARY 29, 1961,
FAMOUS SONS OF FAMOUS FATHERS
F.E.'s son, too, has a
fashioned watch chain with long golden links adorns the waistcoat of Lord Birkenhead. It was his father's chain and is a symbol of the close affinity between the son and the brash, rip-roar- ing F. E. Smith, who be came Lord Chancellor of. England and the first Earl of Birkenhead.
AN old-
With his left hant Birkett Lead tale ut o gold watch, "Not father's" he says sombrely,
That was stolen."
Hobby
From the right-hand waist- coal pocket, he lakes out a small gret attached to the watch chain. It is about three inches lone. By and a quarter inches wide and half an inch thick.
Birkenhead's eyes light up as he holds the object forward for my inspretion. It is a diminutiv, camera.
"My hobby," he says.
gift for words
him”
By TUDOR JENKINS
Birkenhead The only time I remember
still hopes that his angry with
family," one day it will bo possible to ays Birkenhead, "was when I publisli it. So do I. WIL pt Eton. Just before At present he is approaching Christmas he received my SEKI report, 1 found tather in the library kicking the re- Jort furlausty all over the Toom. He did not speak to me the whole of the holidays."
Looking
back now, he nudist
I think he was justified. That
port was a shocker."
When he was ot Oxford, Birkenhead was encouraged by his father to take his under- friends home to
graduate Charlton.
They were delighted by father's conversation," he says, but they had to pay a price.
With a mile, he adds: "In the At the end of dinner, each one
[1
sitres, these miniatures are becoming popular Hunting women and men carry them, a friend or ifval has a particu- Jarty humillating fali, vút vome the tareas and the nonient of embarassment lives on."
We talked at Charlton, the family nearly 10 miles from Bunbury, in North Oxfords shire. I was a collage in the untain street of the tiny hamlet when F.E. bought it in 1906. For him, its chief attraction was the hunting.
He filled the stables with hunter, and followed the Bicos- ter hound:
The second Lord Birkenheart does not hunt, But he still has two or three horses. He like hacking-
F.E kept adding to the rot- tage fill now It is a fine country Ireme.
The
He loved this place," recalls
"Ifis Sata,
energy was atupendous. In the morning father would play 18 holes of golf: after lunch, a few sets of lawn tennis. In the evening. he would take two horses up the 40-zere Belt and gallop.
Kicked it
had to stand up turn and make an exleinporary speech an a subject chosen by father. He used to tell them they would never get anywhere unless they learned in think on their feet.”
Charlton is full of tangible memories of F.E. There are his desk and chair; the books g loved 11 the library shelves from floor to ceiling. On the walls are cartoons and photo- graphs of him, from the days
when he was Ulster's Galloper Smith to the later days with Britain's leaders in
1914 the war, and the time when he sut on the woulsack.
Inherited
His closest friend was Wing- ten Churchill Sir Winston is Lard Birkenhead's godfather. Randolph was his fag at Elon. In a window niche is a bronze
head of Churchill; in another is
head of F.E. by Sir Winston's coeln, Clure Sheridan. Neur by
chill at Blenheim,
Is a picture painted by Chur-
What, I asked Lord Birken- head, is the greatest naset you to inherited from your father?
4
Without hesitation, he answert. "The use of words."
F.E. took as his motto: Maker "On top of that, in the sum af my own fortune. He made
san, too is a worker, but
more i frugal.
ner he would go for a swim in plenty and he spent plenty. Hls
the pool he created at the bot- tom of the garden."
This pool, about 30 yards long,
was reputed to be the biggest in htivale ownership at the time. For the son it was too far from The frame sa, slowly, is being filled in and becoming a 13- pond. In its place, Birkenhead ites han new pant built a few Paris from the terrace.
If was not swimming weather The day I was there. Snow was falling heavily. Birkenhead looked out of the window with mtisfaction.
Beginning each morning ol
the end of the blography of Lord Cherwell, who was Chur- chill's metenulle adviser during the wor, It has been a terrific task occupying three years.
Why did Birkenhend not be come a barrister, like F.E.? He explains: "Father did not want e to; he sold the Bar was too precarious a way of making living"
a
As he works on his books, Birkenhead smokes cigarettes,
about 30 a day. He also likes cigars "on inherited taste." His father smoked as
mahy cigars a day as Sir Winston Churchill.
Welsh wife
"My son likes them, too," SAYA Birkenhead, His heir 24- year-old Viscount Furneaux, is likely to go into the City.
One other thing Birkenhead inherited from his father: an eye for a wife. F.E. married the only girl for him; she rejoiced with him in his successes and sustained him in bis vicis- situdes.
Birkenhead married a daughter of the first Lord Camrose: a Welsh girl with a dimple. How couki a man choose better?
-(London Express Service,)
DR ADENAUER, 85, INTENDS TO VISIT PRESIDENT DE GAULLE, MR MACMILLAN AND PRESIDENT KENNEDY NEXT · MONTI
еши
VILKM
"AH-YOUTH. IMPATIENT YOUTH
London Laurasi Servier,
ONCE A LONDON DISHWASHER, HE IS TODAY ONE OF THE MOST BRILLIANT, RUTHLESS COMMUNIST LEADERS IN THE WORLD...
THE ONE WHO SHINES'
Trouble again in Laos-and confusion.
Once more the man said to be the cause of it is Ho Chi Minh, Communist president of neighbour- ing North Vietnam. Such an accusation dangerously simplifies a com- plex situation. But this frail-looking old man, once a dishwasher in a
South London hotel, is the dominating figure of the troubled area of East Asia, the man who will do more than anyone to shape its destiny- whether by inspiration or insurrection.
Ho Chi Minh has long established himself as one of the most brilliant and ruthless man in the Communist world. A man who would stop at nothing to achieve his aim of a united Vietnam.
If Laos fell to the Communists, the troubled frontier between the Reds and non-Communist South Vietnam would be more than doubled.
His name means "one who shines." It is the last of a series he has used since his early days when he lived in a remote village in North Amman under the name his parents gave him when he was born in 1894 -Nguyen Tat Thanh.
drunken
9.30, Birkenhead writes in his study at the top of the house. "I picked the room," he
His bullying, "because there are so many father, thrown out of work states to climb, no ond ever because he opposed the disturbs me."
says,
He became a professional Time, vented his spite on writer after a brillant military the boy, the youngest of his career in the war. He has given three children.
up politler-he was the voice of
by
Simon Kavanaugh
the Admiralty in the Lonis--for Nguyen, a spirited Ind, of 18 who styled himself top and
life-story of his
WILS
the movement of the
the time being so that he can found life intolerable. "Nguyen Ai Quoc" (Ngu- traffic around Piccadilly Cireus" devate himself to the work in band,
sen yen the Patriot) was so im- In 1910, he went to Parls For the sume reason he When his sister rarely comes to London. tenced to nine years' hard pressed with all he saw that where he worked as a photogra- Birkenhead has written the labour for helping the pea he discharged himself from phic improver. He also improved father and of sanis too revolt, and the the crew and became a diah French and spent his even- ings studying and arguing Mar- his sister, the sparkling Lady brother he idolised was washer nt the
xit philosophy with young in- tellectuals of the Left. thrown into jail for shel- Hotel. He has also written the au-tering a rebel leader, he thoritative blography of Rudran away to sea. yard Kipling. But legal dim- w33 la culties arose when this
"This was always a splendia house in summer.it he says. “So evol. In winter it was cold."
Benson for his antisfaction: he bas just had central healing installed. In many other ways. too, he is improving the place.
ΔΕ 53, Birkenhead is n shorter, slimmer and subdued version of the rumbuctions F.E. What kind of man father at home?
Eleanor Smith, who died a few
years ago,
Carlton
Today, greeting Western visit-
He soon became convinced that ors in his luxurious palace at Communism was the answer to the troubles of the downtrodden When the French liner, recalls his days in London with ritories like his own native land. Ianol, President Ho Chi Minh people in French colonial ter- cubin- two on which he was
genuine nostalgia, "The people
was finished and it has not been He was indulgent, never published, It occupies administered any form of cor- bound volumes poral punishment.
shelves.
on his book-boy, reached England the were so friendly, there was no Indo-Chinese peasant youth racial discrimination. I loved the
· Of coursh I drink like a s fish what did you exshpect? **
Every once in a while, - doctor, everything seems upside down!"
Ruthless
He formed 2 League for French colonial subjects who shared his views, but in a short time decided that only fellow Indo-Chinese were "reliable." With a ruthlessness he never hesitated to adopt in later years, he purged the organisation of its African members.
In 1923 he went to Moscow
as a French delegate to top
not to return to France until he
level Red conferentes He was
Living and working in tha
came as head of the Vietnamese laborated, were disturbed at the meni which formed a frontier
of the so-called between the Communist North former palace of the state in 1940. Moscow sent him rapid growth
was transferred to
French.
faded khaki uniform. His" hair
to Cantan where the Soviets "Vietmin"-an organisation he and the non-Communtat South Governor-General, he wears a were negotiating with Sun Yat- formed to achieve Independence along the 17th Parallel.
in grey and sparse, his thin sen's regitne. He was astensibly for Indo-China when the Japan-
Today, President Ho C Minh beard ragged and neglected. an interpreter, but was entrusted ese and the Vichy French were
continues to press for the re-ini. with propaganda and Communist expelled.
The President basking yet unification of the country. As action over a wide area of Chinn. Later he
opportunist an ever, he is pro- again in the world spotlight is Siam.
bably the only Red leader as the absolute ruler of 12 million welcome in Moscow as he is in subjects to whom he is known with genuine affection os. "UA- Peking.
éle Ho". He rides among them Ho pleases the Chinese by not en horseback despite his advanc- wholly discounting their theory ed age. His intellectual capacity that war is inevitable; and Mos has been acknowledged ruefully cow likes, him because he says by the French, who admit they quardedly that the possibility of underestimated him until it was
too late. war cannot be ruled out.
HK police
He was again. put in prison, but released because the Kuo mintang could not do without him as a source of Intelligence, To save the fee of the general who' arrested him, he agreed to change his name. He became The 1930's found him in Heng- "the one who shines?!" kong. where he formed the Indo-Chinese Communist Party When the Japanese surrender which was soon recognised as an ed, Vietminh was the only or Independent section of the Com- gantced force in the country. Ho munist International. From Chi Minh was made Supreme Hongkong, too, he organized # Councillor on the abdication of claing In Indo-China which was the Emperor and son after the But down by the French only proclamation of the Independent with dimeully.
republic of Vietnam as a free slate within, the Indo-China The British police in Hong- Federation he became presid- Kong, alarmed to discover that ent. so much intrigne was going on
Pleases
For despite apsarances, Hu Chi Minh is no simple peasant. And his frail, body anil nʊth brown eyes belle his strength. President Ho Chi Minh says ho
It's a ruler who' with one has never forgatiom his humble origins and stil prefers the sim- voloe calls for world peace tel ple life. I was chosen es pro- gardless of politicst faith, and in aldent because I had nothing-no another demands the extension But nogollations with the familly, no house, no fortune and of the frontiers, of the sagniry In the Colony, threw him into such broke down, Ho Chi only one suit of clothes-iha ons which could hardly hav been
..
prison.
Minh accused them of wanting I ant, woaring."
the country. In When he was released to re- to co-occupy ared his underground activities. December, 1940, war brake out. In the Japanese war, Chiang Kai- It sted for eight years and Fatwke's forces, with whoch ho cpl- ended with the Geneva agree
up
founded, without himna domand
willch maty in the non-Com-
"I live like a peasant, 1: nes mundos. world condena naʻu befor dawn and I do not real thrext to faterassipial se-
Curlty, to bed until lato at pight."