1952-06-07 — Page 6

*Page 6

Master horologist's dream is realized- 104 years after his death

ABRAM-LOUIS PERRELET, of Lo

Locle, in Switzerland, was born in 1729 and died in 1826. Hò was a watch- maker. A great watchmaker. And, prealest of his achievements, perhaps, was the in- vention of a self-winding watch. This pedo- meter, or jerkwinding pocket-watch, in- spired men like Breguet and Recordon to emulate him, and set the direction of research into the self-winding principle for the next hundred years,

A typical pedometer watch, inspired by Abram-Loule Perrelel'e prototype. None of the watches made by him has survived,

But 'Perrelet's pocket-walch, though it wound itself, was not the final answer. The constant jerking told hard on the mech- anism, and although perfect in theory, in practice the jerkwinder's shortcomings doomed it to failure from the start,

Different applications of the principle were used; different, often fantastic, types of watch inade their appearance. But for two centuries after Perrelet's birth, no one had bettered his achievement; no one had produced a really practical self-winding watch.

And then, in 1930, Rolex began their attempts to solve the problem. With the

All Rolex Oyster Perpetual chrono- meters carry with them their own sich of supremacy-the Rolex Red Seal Ilga that the watch to which it la attarbed has been rigorously tested by an Official Turting Station of the Swim Government, has passed them tests with honour, and has been awarded its own Official Timing Certificate.

Abram-Louis Perrelet,

1729-1826

Rolex Oyster case ready to protect the delicate mechanism that was demanded, they set to work—and found the solution within a year. Perrelet's dream of the perfect self-winding watch was realized at last!

The Rolex 'Rotor, as the new self- winding mechanism was called, was patented fa 1931, and answered all the demands made upon it. Here at last was the true self winding watch: the Oyster Perpetual

Twenty years of testing, both in labora fories and in real life, have fully established the reputation of the Oyster Perpetual. The Oyster Perpetual can truly be said to have opened up new horizons in the whole of the watchmaking world,

SECRET OF THE DYSTER PERPETUAL ---- THE WORLD'S FIRST SELF-WINDING WRIST-WATCH

As simpla sa It was hard to find, the Rolex 'Rotor", the invention that solved the self-winding problems, Owes its existence to the inpiration of Mr. H. Wilsdorf of the Rolex Watch Company, and his brillant technical Chief-Director M. Emil Borer. A semi-circle of metal revolving on ila own axit, the Rotor obviated all the anags of the cid hammer-jerkt, and with a coming the fint tros self-winding wrlet- watch the Oyster Perpetual was born. The motion of the wrist, acting on the Retor, means that worn for only & hothes a day, the watch w!, never ored winding.

*

FREE! THE INSIDE STORY The fascinating story of one of the most famous watches in the world is told for the first time in The Story of Rolex. Write for a free copy to The Rolex Watch Company,

Limited, Geneva, Switzerland.

ROLEX

The world's first self-winding and waterproof wrist-watch

Bes

Kong

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CH-SE

WICKSTEED UN

of

BEGINNING A NEW SERIES

IN WHICH A FAMOUS WRITER IS SURROUNDED BY. WATER'

THE ISLES

No. 1-with MR. PINCHER on Puffin Isle. -

H

Skokholm.

·OW would you like to

bo marooned on an laland with thirty thousand sea birds, eight ornithologists, and Mr Chapman Pincher?

That's how it is with me at the moment, and if only we had Mickey Mouse and the Murx Brothers too it would make it the perfect week-end.

Skokholm is a bird ob servatory off the Pembroke shire coast. It is a rocky island about a mile long and half a mile wide, and at this time of year multi-

tudes of birds that normally spend their lives

at sea come here to hatch their young and make them

British citizens.

You can't give

by

Except for the young man

from Cambridge, the others are

all amateurs who pay four

gulness a week for their keep three, and after ringing them, from the open sta como their and get a holiday on an island let them get on with their puffin mates to relieve them on the

offairs. Some day they may be nest.. thrown in.

found as far away as Spain and will the rings on their legs Of those here at the moment Identify them at once as the one is a young farmer and en-

puffing that Pincher and Wick- other a schoolmistress with term off. There's retired steed caught. medical officer of health with his wife, and a girl from B.B.C.

a

#

the

Night birds

went They'ro

are

Cancer said the doctor

..

"It's cancer,", sald the voʻlor, and for 30 hours KENNETH HARE-SCOTT was haunted by fear like that of the lonely soul in the condemned sell" Thai ho learned there was B good channs of cure and in this article seeks to give, hope to: others who may, hear the dread-, ed words, "It's cancer, Domi

W

HEN my Z call-up: papers arrived Inst. You have to be careful not to summer, I presented myself tread on them. When you walk for medical examination: you constantly hit by Five doctors examined me, them. I got one slap in the and one of them sald;p "I tummy from a wet shearwater wish a lot of 19-year-olds that nearly winded me

were as fit as you." neef wat Not bad for a youngstor" of BD, 1 thought,

And all the time the birds are calling to each other with a curicus, anxious cry, like a rooster with a sore throat,

In October

Naturally Mr Pincher is in his clement, You never saw a

I got down to man so delighted with his sur-RING ef puffins we

work, beginning a new book to: be after razorbills, roundings. He drags me around

completd in the spring. Then This Is the time when suddenly, on the way by car the island ambushing puffins and harder to catch because they sit of bent wire that you hoolt round precipfees, but with our plece rings. All you have to do la pain in the groin a horrict we ornithologists go out with from London to my cottage la stalking razorbills with a plece about on rocks on the sides of lanterns and a pocketful of Suffolk, I was seized by a sharp their legs from behind,

We've been smell ing under rocks for Mother

ring them, Several others had Carey's chickens and laten- ing in a cave to a Geal snoring.

BERNARD

WICKSTEED

who will report from Island No.2 {{EXT WEEK

It

of beat, wire we managed to pick up the birds from hook two round the leg and ground like so many stones.

close shave...

But the supreme thrill on this island of birds comes between

The puffin' am- midnight and 2 a.m., when the

bush was great fun. Puffins

out are the Manx shearwaters creep Tubby Hubbles of from their

underground nests

the bird world. for a breath of fresh air. They nest in rabbit burrows and like

It would be death for them

to stand at their to appear in daylight, for they would be killed at cnce by the a bird a passport, but you tubby tummules, can put a ring on its leg We laid a act on the ground Bulls So all day long they that will

in front of come burrows and stay in their burrows in com- identify wherever it is found and in fixed it so that when we pulled plele silence, thousands

a rope it swung over and cought thousands of them, this way learn about its anything standing acar. wandering habita.

More than 3,000 birds are ringed on Skokholm overy year, and Mr Pincher and I thought it would be fun to help. So here we are, living in a converted barn, and no Loat back till Sunday.

The bird watchers are as in- teresting to study as the birds themselves. There is a young man from Cambridge who digs up birds with a spade and then plants them again like pota- tocs.

He is more of a bird smelier than a watcher because he goes round sniffing rabbit holes and if the smell is right he dīga,

When I asked him what he hoped to learn by this be said he was studying bird navigation and was seeing if the same birds] occupied the same holes as last

year.

Painted nails

As we were watching he un- earthed an avian scandal. He dug up a pair of Manx shear- waters, which are sea birds about the size of doves, and found, after noting the numbers on their rings, that they were virtually nesting in sin.

nalis.

↓

the business

doctor gave me tablets and, for a few months, the pain aubrided. Then I déveloped

aware of a swelling which in itself gave no pain at all

Before the dawn recurring ache and becama

IN

TN an hour Pincher, the girl from the B.B.C., and. I ringed -120 and noted the numbers of 100 athers that had been ringed already,

I'm sorry

A speclailst feared lubercular Infection, and a few weeks later

underwent an operation. When

the effects of the anaesthetic had gone, I felt in- credibly happy to think that the beastly thing" was done with.

Gradually the night greW quieter and long before the list glimmer of dawn had seeped into the sky the last shearwater had gone-cither lo its burrow and solitary egg, or Yes, I enjoyed the fun of the and else to the open sea for food. ward, realising' that in a tow days I should again see the You imow, I shall feel quite daredits in my cottage garden.

when that motorboat Then the blow fell, week comes to take us off on Sun-offer the operation, the surgeon sfood at the foot of my bed. Ho looked seriour as he studied. amin

a report on my "removed pant."

Thon, when the night is at its GOITY Then we hid behind a rock

and tho gulls and waited for tubby puffins to darkest turn up, Altogether we caught asleep, out they come and in "'—(London' Express Service)

ore day.

PARIS NEWSLETTER from SAM WHITE

Mr. Bruce's fancy dress brings a diplomatic ban

Paris. CLOSELY guarded diplomatic secret has burst like a thunder- clap on Parisian society. The secret: that American Embassy officials, from the Ambassador down, been instructed by the U.S. State Department not to at- tend fancy dress balls in fancy dress.

have

*

The result has been a shower of Embassy.rebuhis...... to Invita............. tions to attend the aristocratie Vicomtesso de Nonilles's Fancy Dress Ball,

MR. DAVID BRUCE and WIFE. They went to a ball just your.

20

dress carelessly, I have seen Engilsh women in the paddock who are not even wearing hats.

M. Felix Kir, Mayor of Dijon, on refusing a grant to a french -expedition searching for Noah's

Ark on Mount Ararat:

"The Ark story seems Eshy.

"How do we know that the Ark of Noah, the father of wine" drinking, did not really run aground In our country of Burgundy where divine wines

bound?"

A fashion writer on France's "new" "transparent" bathing "They are discreet, costumes: distinguished and respectable.”

members

•

PEOPLE.

*I'd hoped it was T.B." he said. "I'm afraid it's hot. I'm sorry...

Then he turned to Sister. “Ho must ses Professor Mitchell as soon as possible"! And passed to the next patient,

He

I knew about

is

the professor.

is one of the greatest cancer experts In the country. So that's what the trouble wast

I remeinber that I was reading "The Cruel Sea" at the time. For a good half-hour I gazed at the same page. I could not bring myself to fepic at anything Der anyone else.

Fear displaced

At first I was afraid. Now, I

able.. thought, I shall never bo to do all the things which, a few minutes earlier, had seemed so near-and so important...

Then, suddenly, another mood developed determination to overcome it all

A house surgeon passed. L.

him, told him about, the

and

asked him point blank: "Is it cancer?" "Woll, yes, that's

what the

layman calla it," he said. "There are all sorts of cancers. You'll get on well with the pro fessor. Don't worry. He'll be able to fix you up.",

Hundreds of times that night. those words came back, : “You'll gat on with the professor,...

No answer ⠀

Faced with this crisis and in- trigued by it the Vicomtesso

A French barman who found dids- made investigations and

Three escaped lunatics, told the covered the existence of this

police, "it won easy to spot Stato Department ban The ban, it appears, came into forco

The dinner took place in a them. They came into the bar, shortly after the previous US private room at a Paris hotel, and asked for three glasses of Ambassador hore, Mr David and WB Elmenhower'a Arst water," They had each changed part-Bruce, attended the Vicomtesse's modding with de Gaulle sinco

STATISTICS

What did he mean by "k you nors since he dug them up last ball last year with his wife, the war. The discussion was **

up"? Fix me up for freatment? Umc.

They were dressed as a valet on the hole was concerned THIRTY-NINE percent of the Or make me wallz and a chambermaid.

an de Gaulle --that of two futuro houdt af

of the French Two of the other bird watch-

Round and round the ques- Pictures of them were widely. State hammering out a common Socialist Party are civil servants; tions went, No answer. ers spend their time going round

38 percent of the members of the Next morning the nurse (bless, the island with a weighing ma- published and provoked an in- global polley.

French Communist Party are in her) wasn't much help either. chine weighing baby wheat-cars Finally, after much discussion, a dignant State Department short,

Elsenhower tried to tuns industry. The number of balls "The

professor's and then painting their toc-ban was placed on such outinga. away the flood of rhetoric with per match at Paris Wimbledon, | understanding marvellous, So. was all she said. amiablo reminiscences or polite the Roland Garros Stadium, hai platitudes. One ni

been reduced from six to three. soon learned that in

Then, in

in the privacy of a small them:

the great man SAW am sure, General, that you have

And I a great part to play in your

this year of grace and achilove- country's future"

FLSA MAXWELL'S professionment cancer is NOT incurable.

The word has such ugly asso- is Usted Snatching on this morsel, the

on the Queen clations that even now it is in de Gaullist weekly commented: Mary, passenger list as "Hostess." Itself one of the sufferer's worst "The future. American President Ela Schiaparelli, who knows enemies.

de Claulle's theres General

how to mix públicity with her

cancer diagnosts: views."

drinks, threw a "shocking pink" leads many to hide a suspicious THEY SAID IT.

party for millionaire

lump or other symptom. And Fleischmann, who is Anancing nothing. could be more foolish, QUOTES: An American orto the current Masterpieces of the Change the name

Twentieth Century. Cultural WHAT sort of people are these

on cinger Edith Piaf: "Sho wen

Why can't w bct another bird watchers? Well, to

always looks as though she Festival in Paris, (TROY look at them they are just the

ironing shirts for the wrong guy.” Napkins, and the iced vodka word for this disease, free from

past associations? same as you and ine. The war-

served to.. guests wer

were both

Take my case, for example. den who lives hore with his wife

General Billote on ex-Premier coloured "shocking pink," The Unless I am very unlucky, ca. from March to October took up

Flandin:

"Our English alles cultural effusion of the evening complote cure is possible. The bird watching when he was a E year's most frigid dinner, much admire his comportment came from Gladys Robinson, growth had been removed, and

THE prisoner of war in Germany. - party: One aritanged by, es a spectator of golf."

painter wife of Edward G." the treatment, unpleasant whillo Admiral D'Argienlimu, now a

naw.entoring my blupit Insts, can destroy any cancer Trappist monk, for Génerale de A French, newspaper on Bri- period. From now on I think I which may have escaped tha Gaulle and Elsenhower.

Jah rotegeers in Poris: "They um definitely a religious painter." 'surgeon's knife.

Faced with this mass doser The object of this unusual

tlom Hy her U.S. Embassy pastime is to find out how the friends the Vicomtesse is visit weather

affects

the rate at ing them personally to nuro which they put on weight. The thean:

"You needn't bother to toenail painting. Is to distinguish the birds illi they are old enough to wear ringe on their lego.

Amateurs

With all the time in the world on ble hands he studied the| goldfinches round the camp.

JOHNNY HAZARD

IT'S NOT GÒNG TO BE ) SORARY TO GET RID OF ME ANTON/MOUTIE OVERZLICIÓKKING? FOR SOWNI KAPORTANT:

ל

wear a costume.”

EUROPEAN UNITY THE European Deferico Com

munity Treaty was printed in Franco with German Ink on Dutch paper, bound in Belgian leather, and real tied with

Italian silk,

I detect a light in Luxem- bourg somewhere in all this, THE PARTY WAS POLITE

DYAMPLEL?

FOR EXAMPLE, I'M GUPPOSED \}}^ OH; THAT |TO BE BEST MANAT THE WIĘ

PORRES WEDDINGLE TH

| NOT THERE, HE'LL START.

ASKING QUESTIONS /

By Frank Robbins

HAT ALL BEEN "ARRANGED) MASIELI

·HAZARD!

WE HAVE LEFT A TYPEWRITTEN - NOTE EXPLAINING TO MISIBU WEB. PORRIS THAT YOU HAVE SUDDENLY. BEEN CALLED AWAY-URGENTLY Ž:

· ANY QUESTIONS A

Julius

Fear of a

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