THOMAS W
Limelight
FOUND Mr Alan Sillitoe,
author of the highly success- ful novel and film, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, in a flat which is reached by climbing several flights of bare concrete stairs.
One was scarcely surprised that thieves who had broken into his home-probably misled by all
Everybody
got me
the publicity about his success - wrong, says
had left without taking anything,
There isn't much to take,
Mr Sillitor, in person, turns out
to be a somewhat unassertive young open-necked shirt
man wearing an
who bears no resemblance whatsoever to Albert Finney.
Nur, in eonversation, does he exgress The anarchie, sexy, LG- hell with everything - and - everybody polut of view of his renowned her, Arthur Seaton.
Mr Sullidor Fought that J possible explanation of The sucress of Saturday Night watch Sunday Morning (800,000 copies Lokd in the paper-back edition, the Bmy bewaking all sorts of reemds) was that readers and audiences misallerpreted it.
Anyone who thought he was advocating 1 Artur Seston
Hfe (boze, way of
sex and money) was mustuken. What he was duing was deploring the state of society that forcës Arthur Seaton to lend such an "unsatisfactory life."
Irresponsible
a)
is
"It is the story of a man," said Mr Sillitoe," "who has his earthly brend but που spiritual bread. He has no saritual values because the kind al conditions be lives ie du not
allow him to have any.
to
the reason the character So universally ris- has been Interpreted is becntise there are people who are very happy see the working-class being re- as irresponsible, presented anarchic and without any sense
• purpose.
to
"There's no danger in such people, 10k when they organise themselves to do something change the conditions they live under That they Seeone dangerous.
"I suppose if one were to con- tinue the story of Arthur Seaton he would, ileally speaklog, re- cognise that his fe is urisatis- factory, and what he would do about it to become # Com munist or a Socialist or a trade unionist,"
Why
IF you
look up "At- lantis" in most mo- dern encyclopaedias, you will find it firmly des- cribed as a mythical continent said to have existed in the Atlantic some 12,000 years ago.
But many people still firmly believe that there was an At- Baniit, even though most archaeologists poch-pach The
Idea
How did this legend — If it
is legend-originate? And
what are the scientifle reasona
in it?
Mr Sillitoe
ALAN SILLPROE Deploring, not servesting
Mr Sillitoc arid he thought his attitude would become clearer from his new novel, Key to the Dour, which will be published in October,
with
not
This is a novel which deals the lives and loves of Arthur Seaton's brother, Brian, It is novel which does shirk from using some of D. H. Lawrence's favourite words, nor does it express spiritual values
at the expense of sux-value.
Cheap living
Ile expressed surprise ou be ing told that Saturday Night had sold o rex. "
hadn't notired that there was any in it I suppose there must have been setien novel without sex i'
sovel really. But I wouldn't have said there was lot."
He isn't, he said, particularly Interested in the commercial suecess of his books, nor in making money nor in being celebrity.
A
"I lived for years in Majorca with my wife on £4
'THE' CHINA MAIL,
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1981.
well. I
and we lived very thought Saturday Night would make about £200 for me. It's ante a bit more, of course, though it hasn't enade me rich, I don't get any percentage the ba tokings."
At the moment hy is writing the tim seript of his short stury Loneliness of the Long Distance Bunny for the John Osborne company.
¡L
But he would never write script of other people's work or to order.
VR:-
working for a successful fully- "I do think it's corrupting." wood film producer he will pró-
vide more ammunition tu he said, "in the sense that it is
one's time tain sections of the theatre whe corrupting to waste
tend to belittle his work. doesn't doing something One
do. Or to desperately want
"I'm thought of as a 'safe' course that's only true of me.
he playwright," laik I wouldn't
Jur anyone
"largely because I'm put on by else."
'Binkle Beaumont,
Actually
The author protests...
MR ROBERT BOLT, who
Mis to be found in large Victorian house over- looking Richmond Green, is
an author with a different attitude. He has been oc- cupied for the past few months in writing the film script of Lawrence of Arabia for Sam Spiegel.
"I have a fairly free hand," he told me. "All that Spiegel insisted on was that I bring in half dozen key situations, balties, spectactes, lg seenes.
"They don't
scom 10 mind what the theme of
the picture is. 1 got the impression that one theme would satisfy them as much as another."
Mr Bolt is somewhat per- week, turbed by the thought that by
the world learn the
Old
AS BING AND FAMILY SETTLE DOWN IN BRITAIN
́IN THE GANDEN ↑ KATHY CROBBY, BOƠN HARRY
THE RELAXED
LIFE OF
MRS CROSBY
PHE three-year-old in
THE
red bathing trunks was determined to prove himself one of the great baseball pitchers of the
play gets future.
new title, complained new girl .
the safest and most fashionable plays today are those done at the Royal Court.
"fo be really in in the Nancy Mitford rense, you've got to be seen at a Brst night in Sloane-square, not in Shaftes- bury-avenue, I can't remem-
atomic bomb as ber any play at the Royal Court
That dealt with the ont of my plays did."
THAT oddly útled play The Night by 23-year-old ex-reportory actress 1.ite of a Virile Potato-written Gloria Russell-proved pot to be k virile when it was staged in London
With brown eyes riveted on his audience and Uny arms whirling like a Catherine wheel, he sent a 13-place setling of cork table mats spinning over the Cosseted lawns,
When I retrieved one and handed it back to Hurry Lils Crosby the Third he fixed me last year, insting only Ihres weeks with a look of grave suspicion, at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, and collecting some scathing re- marks trum the critics,
"Now Harry, darling," soid Now The Night We
Mrs Bing Crosby, "say merel of Virije Potato petz a new lease of life-and | beaucoup for Mommy," a new "utie, Stork Talk- film,
it has been made in Ireland with Anne Beywood and Tony Birtlion in Ule leading parts of a gynaecologist and his wife.
s
The play, I gather, has been con riderably refurbished for the version. One of the new attractions
19-year old French
Despite the halo of cuffor- mity that has been thrust upon him by his detractors, Mr Holt
little girl Nicole Perrault (above), who Is, at any rate, going a further than John Osborne
appears in the Bima a Presch au in pair girl. support at his convictions.
* Misa Perrault, with the looks of a Champs Elysera Elianbeth Taylor, He has agreed to take parapent two years as suauner a pair
sit-down 41
demonstration it with a family on the Tale of against the bomb on September Wight during her sclinol holidays. 17 and he s been warned that this time the police intend that to take firm action and quite a lot of people are likely to end up in jail.
In
He drelded to become an actress after making a kit as a gittal artist
is an Isle of Wight school play.
"נימפינג ôrנם
On the whole Villas Perrault pre. Jery drive an aonair 201 in timi ta baing an art pole girl in rest ko. "I feel," said Mr Bolt, "that
sisald the only kind of mild protest
Miss Perrault, who has the sam somebody with something of a
baine, as the French author of Cin- derella and other tales, admits to name can make is to get him- self put in jail for
fairy writing week or
stories once, But so."
DOS HOW
"Now," she said, -(London Express Service). fairy stories to me."
a
“men telf
the
may never truth
about Atlantis
by Leonard Cotterell
for believing or disbelieving capital of Atlantis was a mar- Atlantis disappeared for ever vellous city, protected by an under the Atlantic. Stars leap- elaborate system of high walls ed from the sky, the earth HANDED DOWN and wide waterways, and ap- quoked, and the Mediterranean proached by a huge artificial which had been a series of canal 300ft. wide and. 100f1, lakes, became one great sea as
we sue it today.
IL
s important to know deep-lwice the depth of the
The answers to these ques- Suez Canal,
tions, because if the believers
RED GLOW
In Atlantis are ever proved right most of our bellefs about the origins of civilisation would go by the board.
The city was adorned with About 24 centuries ago the gorgeous
palaces and temples, Greek philosopher Plato told their walls plated with shining a fascinating tale, handed down silver, their interlors roofed with
American Aztecs and Mayas built pyramids, and created a calendar, as did the Egyptions.
These facts, they urge, show that ut one time there must have becn a land-bridge between East and West, and that this was Atlantis and the other islands mentioned by Soton.
VANISHED
the sea-bed, when It was dry land but again, long before mun.
NATURAL
Those gifted peoples whom we call Cro-Magnon, Magdalenian, Azilion, who
appeared in Western Europe between 25,000 and 10,000 B.C., could have come from Africa.
As for the Flood stories, the fact is that civilisation, from China to America, first grew up along fertile river valleys, and it was the early farmers, not hunters such us the Cro-Magnon men, who first learned to live together in settled communities and bull dues.
Most of these valleys would be subject to flooding, and as in Lhose days people looked on The essence of the Allantie their own country as the world, theory
It would be natural for them to 19 this: long before think: civilisation appeared in the Near univerzal.
of such disasters as Few astronomers Ens there had existed a much
of earlier flowering
human accept the theory of "mar capture" for mathematical reasons,
Believers in the Atlantis theory are convinced that the story is basically true. They believe that civilisation came to Europe not from the East but from the endeavour, in a continent which West; not from Egypt and Asia, has completely disappeared; that as archaeologists tell us, but the stories about the Flood. But these fucts do not con- from that lost island now lying which occur net only in the vince the Atlanteans." and deep beneath the Atlantic, where Bible but in the literature of they can produce other argu-
Egypt, Babylonia, China, and ments. curth-convulsion.
America, were a memory of the catastrophie which overwhelracd Atlantis,
to him by his great-grand- ivory, gold, silver and copper It was submerged by some great father, who hud heard it from "go that Solon, one of the wisest of the glow."
Greeks. Selon learned it from
the Egyptian priests,
THE WAY
they gave out a red
Surrounding this elty rose
TIDAL WAVES
It is a romantic and aliene- tive theory, but there are many
SO CURIOUS
For instance, it is curious how often legends about lost conll- nents survive among peoples iving near the Atlantic.
some
Briefly, the slory is this: meuntains celebrated for their Nine thousand years before height and beauty, with many Solon's tire there had existed, large towns and vlilages, rivers, There are some who belleve hard facts which contradict it, out in the Atlantic beyond the lakes and woods. There were that about 12,000 years ngo And if we regard the study of Straits of Gibraltar, un island fountains, baths, A racecourse, planet, Luna, entered the the past scientifically, we must called Atlantis-an island big and large docks sheltering earth's orbit, WES captured take these facts into account.
There is the lost land of ger than the whole of Europe, numerous merchant ships,
by the earth's gravity and Geologists agrco that there younesse, anid to exist beyond North Africa, and Western Asia, And all this in 9,000 B.C.- became a satellite which we call may have been, ni some remote the up of Cornwall. The Irish
0,000 years before any com- the MOG; and that this ilme.
land-bridge between have their story of St Brendan parable civilisation had emerged phenomenon was accompanied Europe and America.
und the "Island of the Diest in Egypt or Mesopotamia (Iraq) by massive tide) waves and where most archaeologists be- foods which sank the Atlantic ships sailed out into the Atlantic there are others.
In 1939 and again in 1947, he found in the Atlantic. And This island, it was said, "was eve man fret began to live in continent.
equipped with drills to take cilies. the way to other islands, and
Nowadays archaeologists take But before that time, they say, "cores" or samples from the legends more seriously than they through the istands you might Ti is a breath-catching pie- the people of Atlantis had al- ocean bed.
once did, but because pass through the whole of the ture; and the end of Allantis is ready begun entering Europe in From D study of these ancient mytha bave been proved opposite continent which sur. equally dramatic,
waves, and the various peoples
partly true, it does not follow whom prehistorians call "Cro- specimens, geologists have de- list hit of the or
Mwas once Magnon," "Madgalentan" and dused that there "Azilon," all of which appented the ocean now is, but that it the visible remains of man on
North Atlantic conflnent where · Again, I is one thing to study For Solan was told that after and Western France, neer dated long before man appear dry land, but quite another to
nd on earth,
search for him on the sea-bed Later it sank, and by 9,500 of the stormy Atlantic. B.C the supposed period of the Greek ships were not built Europe, they were anglly de- The Allantis-believers also Atlantis, the Ailantic was an porters.
One thing is certain. Sup- to stand up to Atlantic rollers, feated by the herole defenders point
of the Atlantis theory out that In Western cenn on it is today. This mysterious Island, it of Allions,
Will have to produce more con- Europe, North Atelca and To ancestors of the plenta vincing evidence, before was cold. supported a colly
torrible America there are similar plants and animals which exist on both archaeologists will belleva în people, ruled by a powerful calastrophe. In 24 hours of and animals, and similar human sides of that can may indeed the Lost Continent. king and "his" 10" notis. Tuo Talu and ddod the Island of customs--for instance, the North once have lived on what is now
(London Kaprèsa Krvoice),
rounded the true ocean,”
Grecks of Plato's Ume the centre
It must be realloed that to the
of the world was the Mediter- runean. Atlantic. Оссап,
DISASTER
first In Spain, North-West Africa
with which we are so faralliar, the warriors of Atlantis had in- tho Allanile (WARD from was almost unknown, because yaded and conquered most of Atlantis.
Then
came
A
Imost
Silence.
-
by PATRICIA
Despite
LEWIS
50 I think I've discharged
my obligations."
When I asked how large a family they were planning, Mrs Crusby smailed gently,
"It's hardly
up to Mɛyou
The only
trouble 15 I'm always oltered such lovely parts when I'm about four
an age difference of see, we're Catholic," she replied. 30 years she is 27--they ench "But why stop? have un attractive partner in the other, they' have two adored children, and a third due in October, they have a runch- home, a desert-horne, und u months pregnant, Beverly Hills home, and while "Yes, of course I enjoy my they both have careers the Cros- acting-I'm a professional. But by millions cancel out any work- I'm not reative about it. a-day pressures.
Best time
Smoothing down her home made brown and white gingham maternity dress, Kathy Crosby sank on to the garden steps and put up her pert, pony-talled head to the sun,
life to
"I guess one needs hold a fresh challenge every day," she added brightly. "There can be nothing more frustrating than having everything you' want because that way you would become spolled."
A joy
"Harry!" ~ This time Mommy's volce had a slight edge to it. "Soy merci beaucoup ur Mem-
"I have to be back in Call- my will fake it away."
fornia "He's very like you," I said. October
around the first
Harry is Crosby the Third of for the birth of my came tearing up the garden turning back to the smiling, baby." she said. "But these path trailing a red balloon. dark-eyed young Mrs Crosby.
weeks here have been about "But he has a lot of
"Hello, darling-show Momuny is the best time Bing and I have the pretty balloon." father's nature. And since we've had together,
Intractable been here" she gestured at
as ever, Harry Cranbourne Cour! the
"I've had no chores, no res- stopped Just out of reach and minculate whille Areet mansion ponsibilities.
stood, twirling the balloon above that has been communal head-
his head like a Jasso. quarters for Bob
"I same Hope, Bing
with my type- Yes, he really has so much Crosby, and
and loads of paper us of his father in him," said his their respective writer menages since Alming "The well as my diary because I mother proudly. "He's gentle. Road to Hongkong.
thought that while Bing was sweet, and communicative-but "Since being here he's got so filming there'd be nothing to do, on his own terms. strong....Oggressive even. You But the days go so quickly and "Bing's joy to live with can see
how virile he's
then Bing and Bob come home his ceeds are very simple, having today."
from the studios and we all just really simple, and while he has alt around and have such fun this God-given retaxedness he talking that I've gotten real is also deeply sensitive.” lazy.
Holding out her arms to the child, Kathy Crosby called to get him.
"Here, Harry-come alt I'm pregnant. by Mommy and say 'au revoir."
The balloon
Fabulous
bc-
She went on: "Of course. It's "Mind you, I always Fuch a wonderful experience for Childbirth is always very easy
lazy when
us to be living in England.
This is such. а
fabulous for me, quite a joyful experience perpetual motion in space.
continued its house and we've all been so
"Harry! Say 'au revoir' or
love it."
happy I'm even going to write In fact, Mrs Crosby says Mommy will take away your a book on It,"
she's having. this baby, "for red balloon." fun,"
It would seem that since their marriage in 1957 the Crosbys have everything.
"Well, we've got one boy. Harry, and a girl, Mary Frances,
"Au revoir, mumbled Harry. Rather wisely.
London Express Service).
"What's it going to be today mate-Ho_ Man after-shave lotion
with the James Bond deodoranti
Lentry HEXTEJE ALENÍOR