1952-07-12 — Page 5

THE MAN WHO WAS KNOWN AS No. 44.

■

By E. V. TULLETT

FN a, cell-liko room of a

IN . lodging house near

Drury Lane, London, has died a man who saved the life of a Prime Minister.

He wen fame in 1917 as an M.1.5 agent who exposed a plo! la murder the late Earl Lloyd George.

But when he died, #ged 72, this man whose name, made the headlines was known only as No. 44-the number of his room.

BARE BOARDS

He was out of work. His room had bare boards, a wooden chair, and an iron bed. It cust him 155. Gd, a week.

It was in the winter of 1917 that Herbert Booth was sent to Derby to contact a sumber of people reported to be plot

ting against the Prime Minis

ter.

•

By posing 05 A deserter Bouth became friendly with them,

The leader was a Mra Wheel- don, an ex-postmistresa who kept a second-hand clothes shop. Her lieutenants. Included a man called Alfred George Mason, a chemist in Southamp ton, and one of her daughters.

FOUR PHIALS

Mason supplied four 'phialu containing strychnine anu curare, the drug used by South Arnerican Indians to poison their arrows.

Booth so impressed the con- spirators that he was chosen to carry out the assessination. Booth was ortlered to go tu Walton Heath golf course with a walking-stick gun, lle under cover, and shoot the Prime inister when he arrived

Instead, he informed the Attorney-General, Sir F. E.

THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, JULY 12, 1952.

"Woll. Willio was standing here yawning just as Stinker sont down one of his smashing forehand drives

London Express Service

WHO'S MAKING

T

ALL THE

MONEY THESE DAYS?

London.

And American visitors, keep small flats in London. HE time of the big saying, "There's no fun here On their door plates you. spender in London's any more," are doing their will find the words, cut West End is run business and moving on small. Registered Office" ning out. High life quickly to Paris or Rome. and the rent can be entered Smith, who decided to strike.

kein the famous square mile. The tax men have stopped as expenses. The conspiratore were ar- rested, They

sent to has reached it lowest ebb. up all the holes. "Expenses"

Yet some high and hand- priron. Another daughter of Visible signs of the chilly with which men in business some spending still goes Mrs. Wheeldon was acquitted.

in the capital used When he was found dead in dawn after the tax men's

to on. Who are they who the room he had lived in for purge

clear to old manoeuvre their nights-out have weathered the cold 13 months, Broth stili had habitues. Club bar profita no longer get by.

blast of 19s. 6d. in the £? are down 53 percent in the

wore

his pocket a letter from the Home Once thanking him for

exposing the plot.

Also in his pocket

were

are

Some industrialists, like past year. In one celebrated one. Midlands machine-tool few shillings, and a Post Office night-club. I visited there manufacturer who used to savings book with entries telal-Were 20 girls in the floor spend £5,000 a year on Ing: 2250

show and 18, customers. Park Lane hotel suite, now

DIMINUENDO FOR "THE BOYS'

A

WIS

A voguo fados...

and

of

FEW weeks ago it Debroy Somers. The most debonair the band leaders had died. Now it is Roy Fox. A re- ceiving order has been made against "the man with the whispering trumpet."

with it, the big monoy, the sharp rivalrios of the Golden Age of the danco bands.

In the belief that the listener

THERE seem to be only

two types left;

JAMES DOW finds tax men's purge empties the night clubs, but misses the rackets of the new wide boys

or competition had 25,000

In prizes for membera,

And 'bookmakers tell me they can get as much na £550 cash

so inclined. For the cheques, pard into the bank as winnings, aren't subject to income tax,

for a £500 cheque, if they are

Some fruft and flower dealers say that half the business at Covent Garden is pow done in cash,

tractors, held-up because of short supplies, have found From these, the barrow boys ways of by-passing the spread out wide through Lon- doo and other cities. They are Desperate to get well organised. One man with queue.

contract finished 80 л van collects from the... mar- one

associates that they could take an- kets, distributes to.

they have

at key-selling points 1. A few of the surviv. other,

"black" prices to smart men I met one such organising ing rich, who are spending who always know where genius in a big hotel in

the their capital Why not,

Strand, Ho lives there-all- they can get another 70 through

the year, It' they ask, have a good time

tong. while it lasta ---- they and their sons why let the One swift packet was Each week he buys 8,000 Government get it in death made through the Govern- boxes of flowers, taking rough- ly is. Od. profit on each box duties?

ment negotiation of Amer!- for himself. And there are no This attitude, which you can steel supplies a few book transactions for anyone to may or may not condemn, months ago. British steel, tax him with, is infectious.

Manufactur-

handy for Covent Garden.

GO

Innocent

if

bought at the controlled 2. The fiddlers, And price of £40 a ton, was con- fiddling, the expert ob signed to a West Country

as BUT buying and selling bus- would be satisfied with Just the servers tell me, has become port and sold at £72

Is the nesses

biggest American. sight of the musicians. No pro- a very fine art.

money game. · Any duction; no-show-no-hurses; Cash business deals are ---Cash business has brought newsagent-l-bacconist shop will no camels. Just "the boys" and now conducted on a flabber- new faces to the old haunts do. Bought at £1,500 when its

of all things music stands.

turnover la only £70 a week, And a new of the wealthy, a new kind

will sell for £5,000 ᎭᏓ .

ita The tradition of the big bands gasting scale. was not maintained; and that phenomenon, barter; is com- of face, too. You can see sales are pushed up to

£200. tradition was that the customer ing into fashion among even the difference in Manches- This can be done by

high should see something for his the big men.

pressure ter, Birming the Jona of quotas of cigarettes methods and also by To older generations the names Jacks sought the beat; and both money.

The two Jacks, being business

ham and Glas- and other things in short sup came as reminders of an age were able to afford them. And

men, needed no crystal ballers' agents,

gow, as well as ply from other businesses. The which is gone, but hardly for always Jack had to keep an eye The golden era was drawing to dealers wi11

it is finally resold to 'In the West man gotten; the golden age of the on Jack's style. Not unnaturally its close. When Hylton's famous

docm't know these recent tak- dance band. The names

of the one tried to outdo the other. back disappeared

End. from

"swap" large

Ings represent false and Somers and Fox, of Payne and Hylton, playing Horsle, Keep

The men strictly temporary boom. variety stage and Payne's Say It consign- Hylton, can still east a nostalgie Your Toll Up, would bring live With Music was no longer heard, ments of gooda

who get the speli. But among the young horses on to the stage. Payne the curtain had been drawn. without

A profit of £3,500 on such a treat- sale, V.I.P. old would respond with Riding on Today Payne and Hylton are im→ are just part of

which is not taxed, Is people's gossip. The hepreat has Camel in the wear complete

ment from equal to an income of £30,000,- replaced Hylton; the growing with genuine camels,

club proprie- £40,000 a year. pains of Bop have succeeded the Birth of the Blues. And the uninitiated ask: Whatever hap pened to that golden age--and why did it die?

·JACK v. JACK

•

Alongside Hylton and Payne, ploughing a spectacular

steady if less Hall.

course, was Henry

presarios.

HALL, COTTON

the

in

or

voices money pass- ing.

To

ret epending He had become a band YET Henry Hall, having seen Icader in 1022; 10 years later he

money a furni- was doing this job officially for out the age, continues to

ture maker the BBC. These men, and the plough his steady course

write brand Idader. Buty Cotton, an might

athers who travelled through the golden years were personalities her of the Old Boys, continues down a quan- tity of suites Though com- (in

fact

of

THE band vogue begon in the in their own right. Each had a Neither has forgotten the lesson mare boisterously with his band, early twenties nad reached way with him, though those of the old days, fts zenith in the early thirties, ways might differ. And each petition is not so fierce today, high quality) After that there was a slow realised that the dance bond was Hall, and Cotton stul put on Ав .inferior decilue. But in the days before not enough. It must in itself be "band show" as the shadow of war lengthened, a creative force.

Competition among the bands was

force. The two Jacka, Hylton

and Payne, wore supreme. They

topped variety bills; they were

THE SLIDE

dutstanding radio attractions. O the singers and sometimes

opposed to finish and straight dance. music sessions.

The name of Carroll Gibbons give them to a who leader of the Savoy Orpheans dealer Is still remembered; and it is still would pay so encountered. Mr Gibbors

23

$5much through

entertainments manager

w

AcEnfrug "Oh, great Scott. Ermyntrude, here comes my bank manager and you're tearing

overdraft"

London Endreia Service.

ענן

How much of this kind of tors and head

thing is going on? This is some- waiters are no thing no one can include in a longor the census. But you don't need to big executives look far to see examples of it. The sharper the edga of whose £5,000 taxation, the keener is the a year, may be effort to get round it. worth only

£2,000 and whose ex-

pensés are now carefully vetted. Only the smaller men who run their own businesses and

Jack Payne's signature tune. the comedians-were born. for the Savoy and the Berkeley, the books and so much in who can risk activities that

or-

.But he has no deserted active cash.

don't figure in the books have money for lavish liv ing.

Say It With Music, and Jack Vera Lynn, Donald Peers, Ann musicianship, still plays the piano Hylton's broad back were. 151 familiar as yesterday.

Shelton and Elizabeth Webb were godchildren

Similar deals might be of the dance in publle and talks with that Big money was put into the band. The band helped them Deep South drawl.

done with shoe manufac band shows;

and big money along. Today they prevail in the came from them.

turers whose goods would It was not place bequeathed by the

A REVIVAL ? unusual for a band leader to ganisation which nurtured them. make £500 a weekt. But his The band, as a band, slipped expenses were high. The bands down the variety lists.

Will they lead the way, bick were conducted to extensive Hall believes himself to be the to a revival? Few would say ing last band leader to top the bill yes. The days when band costs mounted rising on the wave of their in 1947. popularity, chased from one end. In the later

Henry

be "rejects" but only on CASH is hard to save if it

paper.

daren't be put through One well-known character the bank account. So mink

publicity campaigns; travelling in the West End; ond that was leader's very movements, made (the smart men are at sales (and resales later)

as tho

of

news, when he was feted and put least 50 percent ex-aliens) are high. Business in 'dia- monds reached, an all-time thirties It was into films, when he ruled show went around the clubs and record high level last year of the country to the other. And clear that the vague was ending. business through not only even in those days there was Why? Mr Hall will tell you personality but his f records thousands in his pockets. One farmer in Cheshire

races, recently with several of more than £60,000,000.. Income-tax. So if a band leader

that 20 years put £2,000 or

ngo: the band's when he made £2,500 in his became stylised and that stylism and flew to the ends of the pocket at the year's end, he was can last just so long; in other earth these days were a phase Asked why, he admitted ho has £20,000 worth of fortunate. And for that he had words thebands and their to be written into the history of had sold his factory at a "sparklers cemented into to work tirelessly,

leaders wato responsible for show business. But one thing is low figure, taking the un- the floor of his garage. For Behind the nonchalance, the. their own fate, a debonair manner, the wide, wido But there are other theories. in their chimney corners will disclosed balance in ready, cash, diamonds or mink are grin often lay n harassed man. And one of them is that the Bill talk of Payne, Hylton, money,

apt to be smelled out by tho The band was big business, with lesser bande expiolled the success Someis, Fox, Gibbons and the

ladder gange. all that this entalls in terms of of

their more experienced others when the first nuclear Some of the smartest re trial.

Ages, degan breiliren. These bands, eny the dance band takes over. There was, too, the replace theorists, were given radio dgies. George Campey steel. Public works con End club last month a handicap ment of musicians. The two and then went out to the publje e

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Big-money gambling is -- thỏ: other way it goes. In u Wost

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