1953-09-24 — Page 4

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THE CHINA MẠIL, THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 1953.

Britain Has The Best Food Now!

A Briton returns from a Continental journey to make a surprising report

By JOHN BAKER' WHITE

London. In a few days from now it Imaginative and often down-

2,500-MILE careful whitstable gymers

will be serving Mersca and right bad in contrast to Ger-

incom- enting and drinking parable quality, at about As, a -tour 'of Western dozen cheaper than its most Europe, after a thorough formidable competitors in Bor-

draux and Marseilles. round of London's restau-

At a small auberge on the rants and journeys into Aix-Brignolles-Nice road they various provincial centres, served superb grilled trout has left me convinced of one chosen thing.

Britain today has the best general stondhird of hotel and restaurant cooking of any coun- try in Western Europe.

of the

rc-

best

many, where railway restaurants are always first-class and latively cheap. On the other hand, the food served at many of our lorry drivers" "pull-ups is well above the general standard of France's "cafe des routiers," Somo live from the lank grilled gammon and eggo but, leaving atmosphere axi England can be found at trans- the vicinity of the Chateau de port cafe on the Maldstone- Seile out of it, they aro no. Dover road, And let us admit Letter than the trout one can that the general run of food in cat at an inn of similar size on cheap Spanish restaurants la as deplorable as the smell of rancid Exmoor.

of cooking all that wafts out them.

Until recently London has been weak on Russian cooking,

Before indignant correspon- dents rush to paper to tell of that "wonderful meal" they had

but in a small restaurant in-a- at Bad-X or la- let me add a very important rider: The best allt street in Chelsea there is food at prices the ordinary per- NEW son can afford to pay.

Russion und

Caucasian

I know cooking of the highest quality. of several European restaurants and at most moderate prices where it is possible to gel about one quarter of the best magnificent dinner at £4 per Russian restaurant in Paris. It head, without wine, And one

is cooked by a Russian woman can pay thot in London if one

and the goulash is cooked by a wishes.

Hungarian.

I would add a second rider, It is easy to eat very nasty, bud-

ly served food all over Britain.

ករ

and all over Europe as well

IN MARGATE

The best omelcite I have caten

especially in that new paradise in the past six months was no:

ira

and the bes:

for British holidaymakers, Spain, In Belgium or France, but and even In France's most Nottingham, famous tourist centres,

In

escalope de veau Margate, A few days ago I had dinner where, a smiling, bustling Swiss

It consisted of thin will In Vichy.

give you

a magnificent

per head- vegetable soup, boiled fish, an meal for 12s. 6d.

that he is satisfied indefinable vegetable dish that provided

fasted like looked and

the you

are really Interested lu by cooking as an art, and not a chicken's dinner, followed! cold tinned ham with salad, and energy re-fuelling. stewed pears,

or

We-in Britain can do better, much better, but we are coming on very nicely.

While the general standard of cooking is rising, that of Europe is stationary or declining. We are losing our inferiority com- plex.

EXCLUSIVE

W

HEN I could no longer be seen by the guard on the gangway I stop- ped. I turned and I looked back at my ship for the last

It is true that Britain can-time.

delicacies U 1 not NO CHOICE

offer such

th

The yellow brief-case in There was no choice in this jambon. Ardennais four-star hotel, and the charge smoked ham of Westphalia, or

the untreated Moset wine that my hand held some private was more than 25%. per head,

In

goes so well with it, but quite papers, a clean shirt, and a restaurant in a certain

of pyjamas. They Soho, kept by an Englishman, it such our restaurants will have pair

were all that I was taking is possible today to eat the best again, after a lapse of 13 years. sule colbert in the world, and I the equalled hams of Suffolk with me into a new life, would back Its sole bonne and York. And if they are wise,

But o Inbater cardinal they will offer cold partridge

man who is stepping and jemme

unbeat-into Parisian and salad with them;

freedom needs Strongest against the

the world

is competition.

uble

the baggage than the faith that Over as

in his heart. centre of a cold meal, starting SAUENINGEN ZEKANANAUARUM AC with the dryest sherry and end

ing with a vintage port. I put my money on a

hoiri that serves 22 in Canterbury wonderful breakfast-and from

Coronation

Under

Patronage

the

Year Ball

me

no more

I looked back at the Batory. the ship I had loved, the ship that now represented slavery to dry- There she was, in

mc.

deck at Hebburn-on-Tyne, white superstructure gleaming above her grey hull.

.

The Spider

*rn bithu

"You've got to hand it to him-hollering all last week at the T.U.C. conference for equal pay for women,"

London Express Service

STORY BY ESCAPED CAPTAIN

MY SHIP OF

1,000 SECRETS

Take hor name, for example, Batory 'was' a Polish king of the 16th century. His portrait hangs in the main lounge of the ship. His name is revered in Poland not the least for the fact that he defeated the Russians in pitched battle.

Communists have no sense of they would humeur, otherwise have realised the irony of keep- ing the name.

She was built, along with her sister-ship the Pilsudski, in Italy In 1935-36. A good ship, I hold to that, with smooth diesela that carry her at

steady 18 knots.

0.30 ans. in your room if you are travelling early. And it was in Chienester, not Brussels Lyons, that not long ago 1 wit offered hot meal "specially cooked for

at 10.30 p.m. erved By a smiling waltres s

whole HERE had been four who did not spend the

rings THE time looking at the clock.

on my cuff when I was her With good food must go gooʻl skipper, but the title of Master wine. Leaving out of the pictur? had ceased to mean anything. Her 832 passengers are com- heart and soul of the fortably cabined and well fed the wines of the district thet The will

since no! travel anyway, It is Batory had long

passed with Polish food. Her 385 crow possible now to drink the best into the control of the Com-

the distinguished French wines in London, Edin-munists. of Hla Excellency ourgh and Glasgow. Governor Sir Alexander Grantham, G.C.M.G. and Lady Grantham

at the

SKYROOM

LUNA PARK

on

FRIDAY

UNEQUALLED

do well, too, materially speaking. They are berthed six to eight in

a

ON June 19

this year, a Polish s03- captain walked ashore from

ship his

at Hebburn on - Tyno. For soven years his ship, the Batory, carnod อ chequered history mystery: intrigue and desertion.

of

Captain Cwiklinski,

on

Only Captain

Jan Cwiklinski, who turned his back that day his ship and on Com- munist Poland and asked Britain for asylum, can tell her secrots. the This is start of his story, which is appearing ex- clusively in the China Mail.

group would be held responsible for the desertion of the third.

To offset this dialllusion the mako UB would occasionally sweeping sonnel.

changes in our por Without warning they would transfer 100 officers and тел to another ship and give

us green replacements.

But they couiti

hot stop the desertion of determinat men.

When

the men Jumped the ship they jumped in groups. If they tried it alone they ran blg risks.

much the same as those put in who by Kaminski's men;

"Yesterday I saw so-and-soTM reading a foreign newspaper.""·

"I saw him attending the pas- sengers' church service."

"I saw him talking to a pas senger" (a big crime, this),

"He showed lack of enthusiasm for file Soviet Union during dis- cussion."

third Finally, the

arm, the Union chief and his "agitators.""

Tako the case of three men tried it in Southampton in April 1952. They were young sick and disillusioned теп

the

The with

new Poland, seven" ment of the Batory who had gone ashore one pay-night in Hebburn a year before, and never come: back, were an in- spiring example..

First Lucky

Their job is to see that everybody put these three tried to do it

BUT works to the degree the party com The first to po was expects. Their reports are con lucky. He was a deck band. cerned with a man's ability, en- He walked off and got clear thusiasm, and ambition. And, away. they, too, are not above spying.

The

:

Szemlet was furious. Reports from all three arm than hud had a pass for thoro and leave, collated by Szomic!

aro

signed by Szamiel, and. liko to his chiefs in Poland. the cultural officer didn't Dent Every so often he holds a con- the fact that he would have to to his cabin which is mention that in his report ference in I found him a distasteful attended by Kaminski, the Gdynia. fellow, dat, untidy, drinker

cabin and eat meat three times who is no more a scaman than UB. Captain Cwiklinski was going a day with as much butter £1 I am a soldier. ashore for the last time. From they like. No Polish worker at An hotel in Kensington, als won the Batory belonged to home has it that good.

the Political kept by a Brilon, has a wine list Peter Szemiel,

Security Omeer sitting like that in range and price 14

unequalled anywhere, It in- spider in Cabin 13.

the

#

THE

No Westerns

18

a

and smolter.

a heavy Party Secretary and the Union He immediately cancelled all He was chief. They work hard at their shore leave. But the next day ignorant of the outside world job, even if it has nothing to the second of the three friends made his try. He put on two Szemiel which only made him do with seamanship. better UB operator.

-

As a result of their hard suits and an extra set of under-.

climbed work many a good seaman has wear,

through the got what he would Ironically porthole of his cabin, and Coded Reports

call his "diploma" dismissal leapt for the jetty. from the service for 11:17- He missed, clutched with his reliability, for lack of patriot hands and hung there over the had a cabin in the petty ism. the Honeers quarters, And, like death, but it's

It's not

while the ", "gangway a sentence of water,

not pleasant guard and the cultural officer. Szemiel's, it had its safe to hold

ran ashore to pick him up, He either. his dossiers and reports.

Yot this network of spring screamed out, "Pollcel Help! Every two of three hours, and informing resulted, to my Asylumt" but they dragged him

tions from the ship's crew. The brig. along, to but where ono Polish. That is how the UB like would send his coded reports to under, but given

of the operators men have appeared to knucklo the chanca their operators to be, free of any Gdynia or Warsaw.

they got out. contamination from the West,

You don't spoil a good hunt-

For appearances he is called Cultural Omeer, but what cul- ture he ever had was long age discarded in favour of a talent for espionage work. cludes a

a pleasant wine from the She belonged to that evil

He is the organising brain of wood at 2s. per glass or a vint-genius of a Security Offices,

crew get Alim shows the whole network of political age rarity at £5 per bottle, but Major Zebrowski, secure in his (propaganda Aims mostly), control of the Batory, a control

general standard of quality

the UB, vis-a-vis price is above that of soundproof office on the Tenth They have a library, from which that has three aITS: of February Street, Gdynia, prewar books and

Communist Party, Western the any other capital city.

books have been removed and Union, For the ordinary wine drinker SHE BELONGED TO COM-

Szemlol is about 30, handsome replaced with a great deal of who cannot afford more

than MUNISM.

Russian literature which no one in a way, with blond hair. But 20s, a bottle in a restaurant, the

his manner is murly and suspici- wines in the lists in Britain are She had been a happy ship can read.

ous. He has mo often cheaper than in France when I became her Master in Conditions aboard the Batory humour, is a creature of from 8 p.m. to 2 a.m.

and Belgium, and hotels are now serving an honest fitted in Holland and I did not as most Western ships. But the TICKETS $25

wine at as low a price as 85. 6d. take her to sca until May 1947; men aren't happy: Why? Let a boille, which is close to the when she went back to Poland us sec. Please book your tables in French auberge price for loca, front of lift, Gloucester Arcade. wine,

under And with the renewed for the first time since 1999.

On her first voyage She went with an honourable Importation of wines that mer- chanta can offer at 68. Od. to 65. record as a troop-carrier under Cd. a bottle, wine is coming back the British flag, and 1 was York. These were mostly, sea- Into British cooking.

proud to be her Master.

men of the old regime who knew what was coming,

25th SEPTEMBER

In aid of the Society for the of Children.

Hongkong Protection

some

of

wise April 1040. She was being re- for the crew are at least as good and can speak no language gain like Szemiel, he would slip mind, in more than 100 deser- aboard and threw him in tho

It is true that our railway station food remains dull, un- I left her a sad and fear- ridden ship. In the seven years of my command, but through no wish of mine, she had become the Mystery Ship, the Trojan Ship, the Ship With a Thousand Secrets,

SANDEMAN

PORT and SHERRY!!

Sole AgentsTM

Didn't Know

TAVEN the passengers we car End had no idea of what was

the wireless ·

room

ليف.

Crew Lectured

Kaminski was always in touch Communist control, in 1947, a ing dog by giving it too much with Poland. He wouldn't have thought of changing his mind arth of the crew deserted in New red meat to eat.

without

Warsaw asking what

he should change it to. APART Arom the old guard who

was deadly dangerous, the deserters for all that,

Cabin 13

But ho

first

deserted

433

for

Szemiel, who was in no mean state of anxiety, wired Gdynia for instructions. He was told: You will meet the Gdynia- .bound ship Plast off. Cape St. Vincent. Put the prisoner aboard her."

Swam Ashore

cape

the fire trip were generally young men between 18 and 25. For those of us who remained CIZEMIEL lives in Cabin 13, con-

And his spy network was They came, to the ship koen things seemed to stay much as veniently along the corridor they had been in the old days.

comprehensive. I estimate that the new society, belloving the WWE spoke the Plast off."the from mine. With his door open one in theen of the ship's com les they had been told.

and the prisoner, was ho could see just who visited me, pany was his creature. He had

The UB who did the recruit put aboard her. We never heard Then, after tho

His is a bare cabin, aples among the Communist Gerhardt

and when. Eisler

oblocTE and ing for the shipping line went of him again.

men who were well- The third friend; a 'musician bail and stewed no pictures on the wall, only a apprentices, in the engine-room, us young jumped his away aboard the Batory, con- dossiers on every manjack of the deck-hands and bospital.

inrgo safe

In which he keeps the laundry, bakery, restaurants, Indoctrinated, even If they called Pinkawa, tried his escape when we reached -- Gibraltar, ditions changed rapidly.

The

American

crow.

It was then that the UB took

He was suspicious and arro-. over, the "Urzad Bezpieczen- gant to the crow, but when we stwa." Polish equivalent of the ad Russians aboard he followed N.K.V.D.

them around subserviently, un- shaken by their cold indifference to him.

Open Informers

weren't scamen,

didn't understand polico We once had farm labourers sent to us, and on another his story and brought him back occasion we received a catering aboard.....

He staff who had never been near

managed to hoodwink Szemlel with a kitchen or restaurant before.

a story about going on. They did not know,

Still they "jumped." They falling sick and overstaying his for example, that when they

they were shore-loave. But he WAS GON vacated the first-class dining- They took the Batory out of

THEY were secret operators,

'but after a while you got to "jumped" because

trusted and was not, allowed room at night the Party some- ny control. On any other ship

know a Kaminski man. He was disillusioned. times took over.

in the free world the Master

He did not, as I did, dine with always listening to what others Before we touched a foreign ashere again.

When we got back to South- controls his vessel down to the the passengers. He sat at en were saying. And on my way. port the cultural officer, or the

on our Tables were covered with red inst rivet. Not now

· return" from for me other table with the chief purser to my quarters I would oc- Press officer, or any of their ampton cloth. Portraits of Lenin, aboard the Batory.

and ship's doctor,

casionally brush into them as division leaders would lecture India he dressed himself to his

swimming trunks, Stalin, and Polish Communist

lipped they scuttled towards Kamin- the crew on those lines:

re through. leaders were leant against the I became its chauffeur with

But his eyes would be on me ski's cabin to make their reports, "Beware when you go ashore.

porthole, and fne gilt and birch panelling. no more authority over what as I chatted to my passengers,

800.yards to the jetty, In the Wost we are hated. You swam goes on in the back seat than a And his eyes would be on the The band arm of political may be murdered or kidnapped. whore a polleeman, picked him And through the kitchen chauffeur has

wine steward, who was one of control was the Party Secretary Trust nobody. Don't go abore up, listened to his guaping plou doors came those members of

his eplas and who, he no doubt." (one of my officers) and his alone, go in groups of three and for asylum, and "helped him hoped, was remembering every men of confidence!! -

keep together.

along to the police station thing I was mying to that

"Watch each other carefully, Not everybody was able- American from New York, or These were informers who you'll see a lot of goods in the walk down the Bstory's gang- that Dane from Copenhagen. were supposed to report on the dope, but remember the people way to freedom as I was.

crow's political reliability. They are poor and nobody can buy Szemiel trusted nobody. Ho were all known, there was to the things they goe," did not oven trust Kaminai, secret about them, they were in The youngsters would believe who was third in command and every department,

thim at fish. After a voyage or prganised the UB-spies aboard,

the crew who" were. Communist. The UB, along with the Party members. And that was United Polish Workers' Party about 80 percent willing and (which is how the: Polish Com

nwilling, but modny unwilling, muniat Forty stylestar) begurs

the leaning portraits to run my ship. they wat and listened to harangues on Communizm, on the Soviet Union, on the Iniqu

of the West.

ties of

The Real Mastër

•

two, however, they discovered

that

Dropio outil by the

It's than seamanship, theso men of murdered next. 10

When a strategicely planted WAS still called Master, and Kaminak! I've heard. Sinces promotion in the Polish "Long Life to Stalin" there it still plaased the Com- he's now been discharged be more on polillent reliability would be a well-disciplined munists to point out that a non- couse he lot me get away. Dnswor of "Hurrah! Hurrah!. Communiat skippered the ship.: They to be tough for

But:before wo 11N the hatches',

But the

roul Masters was on the Blatory lol's see how she second ; in, commandi, appeared to the · pisivanETS.

.called “Peter

DODWELL & CO., LTD. Hurrah from all present.

that

that

genuinely friendly They'll get roundto, Szomial > ana

They also discovered that the WAS TOY eventerally,

And they are not above a bit admonition to keep in groups an ex- Kaminski (no OFT

of spying doo, The reports they of three was not for their own Skool, held who rank of

in the put in to the Party Secretary are safety, but because two of the

.

the

TOMORROWį Major Zebrowski- the man who controls the politi=" cal" network of the {shipping@fine. /. 1 fight

for

crew

*Feraw? How the

to work