1941-08-12 — Page 39

THE CHINA MAIL, AUGUST 12, 1941.

CHINA MAIL

-WINDSOR HOUSE

TWO BRIEF YEARS

יי

It is a fantastic experi- ence to look: back across two brief years to July 14, 1939, the 150th anniver- sary of the fall of the Bastille. Europe was offi- cially at peace then; the outlines of the Continent had suffered little appar- ent change since Ver- sailles, although Austria was gone, and Albania, and Czecho - Slovakia. Down the Champs-Elysees paraded the principal supporters of the Euro- pean order, the French Army, unmatched in pre- stige in the world. In a position of honour in that traditional display were British guardsmen in red coats and bearskin, Bri- tish sailors and marines|

and the close-packed Parisian crowds shouted "Vive l'Angleterre!" Pre- sident Lebrun, speaking at а demonstration of French unity, flung the challenge of the demo cratic way into the teeth of that black cloud of reaction mounting east of

Rhine; "Immutably at

Yates

TIME BOMB

14

THAF LAND

London Cab

tached to these principles of 1789, France recognises I have a comrade. His name is for all men, without Joseph. And like Joseph of old, distinction of birth, colour

his cout is of many colours. The

or religion, the right of access to liberty and equality."

Bombs

Be-

120.

time didn't we?" So says Joseph who fought all throughĩ thờ......... last war.

Helped Draw Fires

Engines But He did something in this war too. The fact can now be dis- closed that when the big raids on London began last September, we were short of fire-fighting equip- ment. So the taxi men of Lon- usedon, my friend Joseph #amang taxis in London has changed since them, volunteered to drag the

since the war began the scale of tipping has increased, Joseph tells me. So he still earns. much the same in a good week as he did in pre-war days-about £5.

The class of people who

By

All In Same Boat -

elbows are covered with

Joseph is allowed three gallons brown of gasoline a day, which enables leather patches, grease has stain- him to drive about 60 miles. ed and blackened the front and fore the war he averaged sides, while a tear on the should miles a day in his vehicle. er is patched with scarlet tweed: Joseph gazes out on life with One year passed. Po- alert brown eyes through cheap which land, Norway, Holland steel-rimmed spectacles

have the appearance of the head- and Belgium went, in lamps of an automobile. flame and blood, the way Joseph is a London tuxi driv- er. I met him one night when of Czecho-Slovakia. The the German aeroplanes were dron- French Army was swepting high over our city.

were coming down and the bar- from the field, and the rage was going up. hurried Peter Howard

I armistice at Compiegne through the empty streets in my and the tragic necessity pointment in Chancery Lane. of Mers-el-Kebir divided] Soon Joseph's taxi came Aying

along the road. and stopped. war began. "Most of France from her former "Where are you going, guvnor?" seem to have gone away out of Joseph told me, "But there you ally, Britain. There was shouted Joseph, After I had told London," Joseph says. "I get are. We managed to put our people in my cab now who would some of the stuff 'e'd started,"| a government at Vichy him he said, "Op in guvnor."

Joseph drove me to Chancery never have taken a taxi before the (Hitler is usually referred to by that claimed to speak for Lane. When I pulled out my purse war. Mothers from the East End Joseph as é orini)-N

to..pay, he absolutely refused to with children on their way out France, that cast scorn take one penny. "It's on my way of London and so on. Friendlier tions and courage of the London

The truth is that by the exer upon the principles of ome." said Joseph, and added, people they are somehow tob. taxi men millions of pounds this to- Don't seem to have as many worth of valuable material was

3

tin hat, for I had an urgent ap-

|heavy fire engines, and pumps. Out into the blitz night after night Joseph and the taxi men off London went, hauling equipment to the fires which the Germans had started and were then bomb- ing.

Many of Joseph's friends were killed in this service. "Strained the nobs the old engine а bit guvnor

1789 and entered upon the "Anyway, we're all in

gether, guvnor": And Joseph rows nowadays as I used to; guv- saved. Like the taxi men of Paris

?

I have lived many years in this dow sometimes and bawl out to and equipment into the gap in the Marne in 1914, 1 and . saved the

that night I have used Joseph's

for ordinary man's hopes

the

Hard Time In Black-Out

to London. Then 'Itler, drops a packet one night, and back they

Joseph's taxit has a dent is big goyto the country: I've tried to getter the missus I mean as a pudding basin in the bonnet.

to make up er mind: But there This is the result of his driving" you are. She just won't stay put over the edge of a bomb-crater during a black-out a night or two some'ow."

ago. Taxicab drivers, Joseph