BILLY ROSE
tells a GHOST STORY
W
an un-
E men of Manhattan are
daunted and unhaunted lot or at least think we are-and so ghost storica seldom stand a ghost of a chance in this town.
a ren!
The other night, however estate man buttonholed me coming out of the 21 Club and me a chiller about a deserted house in the Flushing section of Queens and on the off-chance that your scalp can use a tingle or two I'd like to pass it along.
On the night of the big show three winters ago, a doctor in Queens answered his doorbell and found a smallish man in a faded mackinaw standing on the stoop.
"My wife is very sick," he said.
"I hate to ask you to come out on a night like this, but it's only a few blocks."
The doctor followed him to a large wooden house near the in- tersection of Vine Street und! Broadway, and when the n unlocked the door the physician of an could see by the glare unshaded droplight that the lawer floor was empty except for
kitchen: in foss
chairs and a length of carpet.
The man led him up a crenky
JOOM
an 11
et of stairs to the second floor,
front and in the roclated woman was lying an old four-poster bed. She kept coughing
SILES
THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, SATURDAY, MAY 20, 1950.
曩
-tends postcard from the Riviora
By BERNARD WICKSTEED:
~London Express Service)
Back Among the Ghosts
D
MULLION COVE.
was "Prangum can be seen all over the coun- beneath Across the road the build try. But what hopes have nd Infinitum." O you know Cornwall?
born ings round the runways been
there! What know that Do you
still stand, and the signs say triumphs experienced! What from road ruming
If "Keep out.
People tres fears suppressed! into a Helston to the Lizard?
it for far passing do so at their own :lood-necked hankerchief, and you go along though the doctor went through enough you come to a wild Fik,"
un moor
the molios of an examination
It was knew at once advanced case of tuberculosis.
called Predannack Bog. and right
"I can give her something to middle of it
relieve the congestion," he told
her insband, "But she'll have
disused airfieldi,
It is n desolate area
to be moved to a hospital Grat
thing in the morning."
He then wrote out a prescrip-heather. tion.
gorse,
swarm
Over the door of the flight- commander's office a wag of the past had chalked "Rau- chen Verboten."
What happened to
The Tarzan girl
by
who was brought up
on
bones
JOSEPH GARRITY
Diana.
WENTY years ago four-year-old
Hughes-Hughes, of Northwood, Middlesex, was the subject of a remarkable "back- She was being to-nature" health experiment. brought up as naked as Tarzan, gnawing bones like a dog, and living on the milkless fruit-and- vegetable diet of primitive man.
The parents had decided that by thus making her a "nature child" she would escape "the mis- takes of civilisation."
How has the experiment worked out? At 24, how does Diana fit into a civilised world after a childhood of nature in the raw?
I found her an attractive sophisticated blonde in In the arty sweater and slacks, completely at home environment of her Kensington studio.
for herself as a fashlon She is making a name
artist.
All who were horrifled her unorthodox infancy report (particularly the neighbours who used to her parents to the health authorities for "neglect") will be interested to learn that blossomed into a per- feet womanhood.
Dlana
specimen
has
of
Venus -"like Ifcr 71784
figure, flawless sun- skin, clear There is only one of them left, bronzed
and eyes
As far as the ex-navigator is concerned there in no
At one time the corridors and At this uninviting spot building on earth he has less in the Desire, the post-war car wished to see when safe on the walls of the briefing room
pulled up and" there's
out of her the ground or more loanged had been covered with mapa and posters telling you how to bale stepped two men followed for when he was up in the nut, how to infinte your. rubber
of children air.
dinghy, how to shoot down the by
"lemy, of post-war and otherwise.
On the one hand, it was and The children were soon the springboard, the jump- free ing-off place to Eternity; on The happily engaged in a " get it Alled right abandoned buildings.
are the fight with the free rubble, the other, a haven of roar lost. away," said the man, and show only living things
and as their mothers, who'd ing stoves, buttered toast
The ghosts took the hint, and, remained in the car, were and mugs of tea,
mother's deep in talk, the two men
Now its doors are nailed fading from the scene as furtively as they came, returned to their
and the
car called revolutionary experi- glossy were able to slip away. up against trespassers, its familles
ment has been com- pletely justified rusty iron stoves filled with Desire.
the wonderful health Z have always joyed," said Diana.
et the doctor to the door.
TEXT
morning. wondering
curlew and salpe.
I have just called there
Desire, with
my
Now the woman was setting family car KYX.
along, the physician stopped by the woolen house, but there was to answer when he bell.
AL
one time
this place
Hopes...fears...
rang the that everyone shung Was WITHOUT revealing the
Moreover, there were no the hunt of Waafs, erks, tracks in the snow.
Puzzled, he went to the once
of a real estate agent on the if he next street and asked could Het some
and swaggering
enormous moustaches.
Desire
can
was once
The
It explains how the searchlights grey white teeth
can help you get home if you're dazzling
tell their own story of radiant health.
by
cn-
Where Joo crashed
minutes later they reappeared outside an hotel. TWENTY Once it was the officers' mess tasted medicine-not Now there are bathchairs on the even terrace.
tablet.
been
n
have
I
never
aspirin
have
the ashes of burned paper. The distemper is peeling off identity of the two in the wails of the bare un-
furnished
rooms, and the tell men with truders 1
you
dangle that
of them, who electric light wires one
Intruders, peering They are gone now, but in had been picked up by from the ceilings. information
her journey On
The gule past have
"I have never had a night through the windows like
The only about the residents of the house. their day they were worthy
cold. dent made at a squadron party, That's a funny sort of ques- successors to the Phoeni- down.
complaints fighter pilot at Predannack ghosts from the past could painted, but you can still see the *There aid the agent. Hon
see where the dartboard had when Joe the Czech crashed into ruttered were measles pixies, wizards,
the other, now an
crewroom. It It in his car and set it on fire Aren't any residents and there cians,
in a school epidemic. likely to be any." The wreckers, smugglers and and
used to been in the
chicken pox is gone now, but the scores
In the next few hours the and
up picked
pt house him't been occupied for other turbulent types who ageing journalist, ars, and though f's always went before them in the be his navigator. 15 years.
of the last game played hosts kept popping up all over
dance." been on my list nobody's ever Cornish envalendo.
there are still chalked on the place. They peeped over the wanted i
fence of a house where one of the door.
CLOTHES WERE The people in them had lived.
NUISANCE' possession mistook them for The coat of arms
trippers, and glared back.
The went into one of the pubs Trow near to nature It has 1 does Krown-up in the front room on the second fighters or the Whispering and to which they returned AN artist in some succeed, they used on nights oft toar, and to hear them tell it, Death. By day they ranged when they'd enrried
ing squadron had changed hands and the man be- Diana live today? kept
painted on the wall a cont of hind the bar welded them up
he when
unid: "You'll be She still sound of a the countryside and harried out.
villages fishing
in It is just #1 standard arms six feet high. It was
strangers round here?" It finally
got the
"We They answered: building full of heraldic tankards of airfield search of
lobsters, R.A.F. eggs,
without a scrap of inherent beer, aircraft, and women fainly are." beer and pretty faces.
character. Hundreds like it with nothing on. The motto
"The hot family that moved in during the depression could only stand it for a few weeks.
The husband and wife
they both wished to
was the
A
raced old Flight dispersal hat. night they alt the sky in mad black where formerly they sat at called Beau-night waiting for orders slept monsters
The place
See
them
they were after night by the woman coughing.
awake night
so bad they packed and left."
"I know it sounds absurd," Laid the doctor, but I examined
a sick woman there last night, and if you've got a key Pt walk over with you and prove it,"
Secret tunnels? THOSE ruins you see on
the right of the road
are all that is left of the
VIIEN they got to the house,Wanfery where the females
WHE
It took the gent quite of this vanished race used while to get the rusty Inck open, and when they entered there to roost.
It was out of stick of furniture in bounds to the erks and the wasn't a
they do say right.
aircrew, but "Maybe you've got this house there were secret tunnels mixed up with another one," the
wire through the barbed agent suggested.
that once surrounded it.
"I still think It's the same place. Let's look upstairs."
On the second floor they went} into the front room. It was also barbed empty.
Empty, that is, except for n plece of paper on the window
Now there is no need for wire or secret tunnels either for the whole
site has been flattened by
aill the prescription the doctor bulldozers and
it notice
had written the night before. says: "Free rubble. Help!
-(London Express Service)
yourself."
Artwork
FOR ADVERTISING
Under the direction of Mr F N. Kent
A comprehensive scheme including ideas, layout and finished design is available to advertisers in the
SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST AND HONGKONG TELEGRAPH
Telephone 20811
M
'A
maintains
all the principles of ccr- her mother's design for living. she said, modified but In form.
(London Express Service)
Canon HUGH WARNER
writes his wookly column HUSBANDS and WIVES
Ah! That only child!
"MY HUSBAND and I have a little pizi of We believe it is four. mistake to have an only child, and dearly long for another one. I have lost two
since expected babies
her birth, and we are thinking of adopting a child as it seems we can never have another ourselves,
"Do you think we ought to wait still longer and hope for one of our own, or should we apply to an adoption society at once?
YOU
wise YOU are
cognise the
rc-
to mistake of having an only child, but I think you ought to wait before adopting another.
a series
From your letter I gather. you are still quite young. In recent years the medical profession has discovered a condition of the blood known as the Rhesus factor, which is often the cause of exactly the experience you describe, One child is born normally. and
of miscarringos follows the birth of the first. If this factor is present in the blood of both father and mother there is no difficulty about the children If, however, it is pre- sent only in the father, a con- dition arises that makes the Birth of the first child possible, but, normally, of no other,
When this is the cob, steps can be taken by the doctor at the beginning of the second or
La deal
the
Diana at three
Here are specimens
menu now:-
Breakfast:
of her
от Two
throo
apples with skin, followed later by a pint of very weak tea.
Dinner: Steamed cabbage with grated cheese; dry baked
potatoes.
Supper:
ог
Salad and
cheese; or fruit meringue.
eren
Diann, not a complete vego-
occasionally enjoya
tarian.
meal of chicken or fish.
D
"I began to drink milk during
the war when I could
Cres
the
not get "Bul I because, like
told me.
sparingly
I do not believe it is for the digestion.
"My chief liquide are soup, crange of other fruit juices, and lots of water. But never do 1 drick with meals.
"I need never repeat the same meal in one week," Diana sald "There are hundreds of ways of varying such meals as salads.
PREFERS LETTUCE TO STEAKS
«TY/HAT
I would like to
Wemphacise is
since I left home
that, ever
I have con-
tinued my diet because I enjoyed
jt.
sicaka
Dlan today
"I don't reject beef Her skin was a cafe au lait, merely because they are not good for my health or figure. I her hair lustrous and thick.
frutt and Though her hips were narrow, really prefer my her chest expansion was so deep vegetable dishes. that her mother had to buy
"I have tried cating steaks, patterns for but found they were not nearly "small women's" her clothes,
"I am not the little savage 1 used to be. Convention ended my nudism at an age when all nice little gilrs are expected to be suitably clad,
"Those early days when I was
so enjoyable or satisfying as a allowed to romp about garden naked in all weathers are
Little wonder that her mother lettuce salud. The
"I find cakes and puddings amusing to look back on. neighbours thought my mother proudly announced at that time:
her odd "Diana is the prototype of what repulsive and would not thanks all children would anyone for a box of chocolates, we belleve
and sugar was killing me with Ideas.
don't feel the be if brought up according to 1 detest all sweets "But children
people the laws of nature-free from confectionery."
I asked her what, if she were cold
as much as some
a gastronomie treat. imaglue. I netually enjoyed it. illness, beautiful, happy, capable
to consider a nuisance to of getting every possible joy Invited out to dinner, she would
Diana
"An omeletic, "Clothes were
replied: third pregnancy
with this growth does not really bei
I disilked hot water and from life and giving joy
others." the effects of this factor in the gin till late in life, especially me.
possibly with mushrooms." mother's blood. Injections can where induences either in child- hated fires.
She has never tasted wine or At 24, Diana still retains her
.out she When dining She is beautifully beer. "Even now I wear the abso- make pozable the birth of an hood or adolescence have made
a cider, but more religion other child.
queer extre-lute minimum of clothes. Winter golden tan.
life. ttoral
often it is an orange jules. scence
bft. 0.5ins.
Bst, 10lb. 1s vest in my life..
Her weight of
"I once tried a cigarette and there is some risk attached to ton of it.
for there is not an liked it," she admits, "One childhood habit I have deceptive, this method as far as the child
When Yet the podbill-
you married is concerned,
you no not relaxed is sleeping in the ouice of superfluous flesh on her rejected a second in case the
ibit developed." convert your nude with only one blanket on rupple, streamlined figure. ty of such treatment should be doubt hoped to thoroughly discurred with your wife, and have gone on trying the bed."
She feels her per- doctor. A simple blood test will ever since,
of many of the -
salons provide the information that you sonality is being invaded. What
in the fashion she is really doing is fighting) need.
for her right to live her own
she haunts with her sketch book, DIANA rarely
Occasionally she tries a spoi life as your equal partner. Her apparent
stubborners
rylANA said she stopped gnaw of modelling herself.
the was photographers for whom she hua deep-rooted rebellion against Ing bones when
posed have told fear of your dominating!10.
seemi upon
a
In a small percentage of cases rather than the natural founda.for summer, I have never worn a proportioned for her height of may choose
It nothing can be done, then
adoption is idea of your eminently sensible one.
THE BARRIER'
OF RELIGION
"THERE IS only one thing that apolls our happiness as a family. We do not see eye to eye over religion, and this is becoming a serious barrier between us, am very keen, but my wife just closes up whenever I try to broach the subject with her.
teate pamphlets about whore I think she may pick them up, as i hope they might do what i scem unable to do.
but it is no use.
the
her.
ទេ
д
SHE'S NEVER TOOTHACHE HAD
indeer,
silhouette Diana's (waist 23ins. hips and bust 33ins)
is the envy models
"Until then I never used a ideally photogenic,
Chewing chop She may feel that your with toothbrush.
to convert her derives from bones kept my teeth clean and conceit in your own opinions helped to develop my jaws rather than from a disinterested "Although I use a toothbrush desiro for her happines
"But I
WHY I LIVE ON MY OWN
rats out be cause the can never find the Fashion food the wants
"I decided to live on my own her she is so that I could continue my
special diet," she said.
"If I marry, my husband will have to put up with me and my dict.
SECRET OF HEALTH AND FIGURE
"If he doesn't care to share It, UNDAMENTAL principle of
not mind preparing I would Diana's nature dret, which, health and slim figure, is the
Stop talking about religion, I have never known what tooth, she claims, is the secret of her separate meals for him."
that's my advice, There is no need for you to change your own religious observances sinens
now, I never rlean my teeth with anything but water. And ache is like."
I asked her it she intended to naturo" plan came "back At boarding school Diana was separation of starchy and pro- rearing her own children on the Eating starch dry, she says, which had proved so successful she does not appear to resent able to maintain her nature diet tein foods.
digestive juices in in her own ense. enables the
uct thoroughly. these in any way. Nor need by special arrangement with the
"Babies!" sho almost ex- you stop talding your child to staff.
"At first, the other children the saliva to she does
"I'll never have any church since, again,
thought I was odd.
com- ploded. But they ensuring perfect mastication and
babies. There are far too many not seem to mind.
got used to the idea that I never thereby avoiding such
This tiny Give her time to think things drank milk, ate ment, puddinga plaints as indigestion.
"I can make a meal of potatoes in Britain already.
she said, "but they island is hopelessly overcrowded. alona, quietly over for herself. If ander even bread and butter. when she does come to see how
in my career. Not even marri- "While my friends spent their must be baked in their jackets, Besides, I am far too engrossed wrong it is that a child should
sweets and never filed or mashed. divided loyalties, and pocket money.
"Although I eat butter with age will alter that" have
Maybe the psychologists can when she is attracted by the cakes in the fuckshop, I bought
from the green- other foods, I never have it with
bread. I do not know what explain why the once perfect Christian quality of your own bags of frull
Although the war compelled child who has become the per- reluctant to THINK you have frightened life at home, your problem may crocer." ble to be so keen on a subject
your wife. It is quite poor well be solved for you.
At 13, Diana was 5ft 4insandwich tastes like " Do not expect this to happen
in height. Though 7st 121b. In Diana to relax certain rules, she feet woman at once. It may well take three weight, she was as slim and has always maintained her basle complete the cycle as the per- that one becomes a bora.
agile as an athlete, and moved diet of fruit, vegetables, salads,
and dry crusts. with a feathery grace.
"We have a bay of ten, and ha is already discovering that there 13 this difference between sim. I am afraid it may soon lead to him taking sider. Can you suggest what I should do?
Religion should be a happy. natural growth. To some people
or four years.
---London Express Service.
on
is 60
fect mother.
---(London Express Berviço)
-