1955-05-16 — Page 4

A MODEL for the

PATIENT

T

HIS is really Jack Romsey's story, not mine. But I knew

Jack for so many

years, and I was so fond of the boozy old scamp, that I feel, somehow; I be- long,

It

Was

CALIU BLIZITTENZIOLA by

LOUIS GOLDING

6201411923114072013 16 316111498211||61|2|||||||

Palace,

THE CHINA MAIL, MONDAY, MAY 16, 1955.

DID it HAPPEN?

continuing the stories

thai start you debating: are they FACT or FICTION

I thought, of course, that he'd taken a little too much rum, like many another good one-time sallor before him. But it wasn't that, apparently.

It seemed that the Law was under the impression. he'd been trying to break into Buckingham Palace. I need not tell you that anyone less like a house-breaker, or a palace-breaker, than Jack' Romsey, never drew breath.

"What's it all about, Jack?". I asked. For we had by this time recognised each other. Even old Jack was a bit relieved to have a respectable citizen tum up who could vouch for his bana Bdes.

J

So Jack told me. I won't try to reproduce the fruity · strains clongated

vowels, the r's that come up from deep in the throat I wouldn't dare.

early in the the royal residences, Windsor of Jack's Dorset dialect-the

and Buckingham thirties that I first met him; Sandringham and Balmoral or, rather, that I walked in

"I have never seen so much on him, being, in fact, on a walking tour in Dorset. royalty about in two dimensions.

"Accommodation ! an.-

47

"

Tr

Orawing by KOOLMAN

TAS

ture Buckingham Palace. Minia. Now he was too unhappy even to ture is only a comparative word. touch a drop. Now he was so Queen unhappy he filled himself till it ModeEed, obviously, on Mary's celebrated Doll's House, came out of his ears. Poor Jack, it practically fled the kitchen, he was a mrry sight There was almost no space left" to swing an aspidistra.

This went on for about five months, as far as I can make Whenever I was in England in out. Then something happened, Dorset-time during the next few as something was bound to years, I made the pilgrimage happen. One night Jack, having been out chopping wood in the to that other

Buckingham wood-shed, found himself in the the axe in his Palace. Counting out a few pro- parlour longed and Infuriating bouts of hand. rheumatism, Jack was engaged

The next thing ... he wan laying about with that

-He-scored his first big "success" "by pirating a tune and his larg

when he sang on television. FRANCIS MARTIN tells the story

Peter Dawson's 50 years of song

London.

£20 a week,” said

N his Dolphin Square Dawson's. Scots-born father, a flat Peter Dawson, plumbing engineer, obviously a veteran bass-baritone, le scandalised at the pros- sturdy as a sea captain, sat pect, "Why, at his age I waST on a hard, high-backed chair making two." and waved me to cushioned ease.

A Thunderbolt

Swallowing inherent doubts, Dawson senior opened a renew- able credit of £100 for his so.. He was still aglow from Peter fomtook his workbench, in his success on TVs "Music the family plumbing factory at London For You" programme, when Adelaide and reached

on Derby Day, 1962, after eight he outpersonalitied every weeks, in a White Star lines body within reach. He sang that was half steam,, half wall. "Road to Mandalay" and "The Floral Dance" with the rallicking confidence of a man who had spent a decade before the TV cameras. Ac- "Could you Five me three tually he did not make his ran through three £100 credits.. years, doctor?" be ploaded. "I TV debut until the eve of Asking his father for a fourth, clinching it's three....I could manage it his 73rd birthday three As mentioned as s

'cfróumatance that he was about. It would be hard, but I know months ago.

to marry a certain Nan Nable, could do it."

who danced and sang in then-

Father's reply was

4

"Manage what?" asked the... doctor.

All Jack was trying to do was And Jack, of course, didn't to helst himself up to those Iron nounced the placard in the have to tell you he had once spikes, so as to get a good view been a member of the Royal of the hind quarters of Bucking- window through a tangle of Navy. It stood out a mile. And ham Palace. clematis. So I knocked i don't believe that any of our

I "But what on earth for!" on the door and got myself sovereigns can have had a more asked. Not that I didn't know

doveted henchman than Jack the

(namely that accommodated, bed and

Courtier Buckingham Palace Romsey, the Dorset breakfast half-a-crown (for that the way I have sacred to Jack as the Ka'aba is

"Could you with But I wanted thought of him since to the Moslem), time.

that first visit to his bed-and- the police to hear it.

in Praddock... breakfast cottage, in the county of Dorset).

I

always

AW

wus

We got matey at the local that Now, I ask you-

fell for the old boy im- mediately, in his enormous blue sweater, his sea-boots, with that coffee-coloured face of his, night over a glass or two of heroic and craggy as the figure- rum. head of an old galleon.

A Navy man

There

was a smell of rum about the place, and a jungle- full of aspidistras. But the thing that captured me at once in that cottage parlour, which you walked into with no bit of a labby to hold you up, was the tremendous proliferation of royal chromo-lithographs - the sort that the women's magazines still issue gratis.

stili

to Queen

I knew he was an ex- saflor. I had guessed, and rightly, he was a widower (for

The next thing anyboy knows was laying about is that he his darling palace with that axe the way a fireman does when he wants to stop a fire spreading.

make

"Never you mind," said Jack. it three? That's all I'm asking you."

"I've told you. If you cut down the rum ration by nine- tenths, have a square meal at least once a day---"

But Jack

wasn't listening. He had already turned on his

a solid five years on his master- picce. And when it was over to the last window-sill and the very bearskins of the guards

in What on earth for? thandered men

the sentry-boxes, among all those royalties there Jack. Because how could he masterly the thing" was.

I think you can guess. What was the photograph' of one com- carve the behind wall of moner, and only one, a dim dead Buckingham

Palace without I was enchanted with it. Its the emotion was that ricted in bed, and was striding out of the his rum-sodden brain. There I place with something of the old little thing God rest her soul, getting a good look at it? That fame spread,

was, the Anished Thing that had bearing in his shoulders, and a was, what on earth for! Didn't doing his bed-and-breakfasts, by and large finished his life phantom, at least, of that rolling however long ago she died).

He had a little pension, of I know that he was carving a But he found himself compelled for him, emptied it of direction sailor's gait. course; he caught a lobster or model of Buckingham Palace as

and of sayur. Break it up! Chop two, and he made out with his big as a piano with everything

it into matchwood! But the inside it down to the chairs and

In time bed and breakfasts. blazing thing about him was his denders, and he'd been on it two white-bot devotion to the reign- whole years already? If I didn't

know that, what did I know? ing monarch.

Not that-

They went back

Not the first Elizabeth herself Victoria, of course, and forward

devoted courtier to George the Fifth, who was had a more happily

with us. They among all those Burleighs and Included royal

who Grevilles and Essexes.

If the truth were told, the Be have never grew up, and

died. There

were also you get at Jack Romsey's was photographs and paintings of all on the lumpy side, and the

since

children

"DOLLARS for DISCS"

"A colony-wide musical request

programme To-night at 8.15 p.m.

over

I pointed out to him, reason- ably enough, that I hadn't been down to Praddock for several years, so he must forgive me.

that pointed out to the police in all the royal kingdoms there was no more devoted a subject than Jack, Jack was molliñed. The Law was mellised too.

Very relieved it was to let him off with a caution. As far as Grosvenor Place was concernit, breakfast, though ample, uneatabl

But what do you the incident was over.

was

Jack went on

MANCHESTER BORN

to

Levis

Golding's first novel appeared 1920. but IP

WOA with Mog-

colla sera. published li 1932,

that became famCEL

LAS! TODE. when A pob lished the fifth and fleet novel

in the story of

Elsie Silver. De

kod written mate than 4 million waed s ground

this one charac ter.

As well at his many morris,, De bos written books about ha treval in all parts of the world. Sixty this Year, Golding is a bachelor.

charge a

supplementary

was all right

expect for half a crown? Neither I took Jack along to the to bed not breakfast prevented me nearest hostelry and assured couple of shillings, there were so from spending quite a number him I could probably hunt up many visitors anxious to spend of half-crowns under his roof, some second-hand booles, and old a night in the shadow of that

the time came, in 1939, when copies of illustrated magazines noble edifice, you went for bed and breakfast which would teach him all he to other

The more haggard places wanted to know about the rear

Palace Praddock, at the head of parts than

of Buckingham Palace Funds were all right. Rum was ils green and bowery dell. without shinning up its walls, all right, too, for everybody was more than happy to stand the royal architect as much liquor as he could take, and he could take plenty.

I didn't sen Jack again till the

REDIFFUSION year after the was, and it

wasn't

Quite sure

|

as

Before making good, Dawson

"Compared with the con- tes. cert platform," he says, "I thunderbolt: find studio conditions a bit trying all those strong lights, all those cables on

DAWSON

the floor, having to toe all those bines. Still

No more money from me. You're a fallure, in getting engaged you have hung a mill- stone about your neck. Forget about music and come back to your workbench.

But there was no going back. viewers seem- Dawson had married Nan, al- ed to like it. ready. They were so hard up You ought to that when his audition chance. came with Edison-Bell, he had see the fan to untwist the pennies from his mail I'm get wife's tights for his fare from Ealing, where they lived, to the ting."

recording studio at Euston.

It is through gramophone records that Dawson is most widely known.

one port

Not only did he sing for Edison-Bell and other early companies. He pirated for them Or do you think that poor old

With a shorthand He made his first phono- as well Jack Romety was just plain

graph record, drink-crazy? Your guess is

an Edison-Bell writer at his elbow

he would He went straight to the cylinder, in 1904, and calculates stroll into the stalls at the good as mine. But if you or joiner's shop, and crdered a load that he has since sold thirteen Pavilion or the Tivoli music hall anyone else, including Jack him-

half an and a half million records of canying a smallish binck box. self, thought that the witless of Brewood Within

hour he was back again at his

or another, most of When Harry Lauder or George destruction of that noble piece oid bench, rebuilding Bucking- them at the comforting royalty Lashwood or Gus Een came on of work was going to make a ham Palace. That was all he

to sing some new, hit which he of Ave percent. fresh man of him, you're wrong, did from then

on, rebuild

had duly bought and paid for, Buckingham Palace,

What was be earning at his Dawson would open his box and prewar peak? "On top of my start up the miniature escorder "He had no more time for bed- gramophone income there were indde and-breakfasts, excepting, I am recital fees and royalties from. pleased to say, for mine-though sheet-music sales. Don't forget

have written songs for my the truth is I had to make the

self under three different bed and cook the breakfast not

names. At the peak, I suppose, only for myself but for him, too.

I was earning

£14,000 to I didn't mind.

£15,000 a year."

Three years

It solved no old problems, and added a new remorse. He went from bad to worse. A neigh bour I had beconte friendly with summoned me to Praddock 2 month or two before my usual

time,

The day came when the doctor felt it necessary to give Jack a good honest talking-to: a drub- bing down you could call it, You are invited to write in in Praddock, either. It was, in

and no man had ever dared to drub down Jack Romsey before. advance or telephone 72211 Grosvenor Place, where the rear

So they told me in the village. during the broadcast offering wall of the Buckingham Palace

But before long the only

"I don't know why you're not your donation to the H.K. Park extends its crest of iron

spikes towarda Victoria. He "You're sure?” asked Jack thing that wasn't all right was Anti-TB. Association for wasn't alone. He was in the doubtfully.

Jack himsel It doesn't take dead already," pronounced the any tune you can name. This company of two stalwart police-

much guessing why. With the doctor. "If you keep on drink- men not so stalwart as himself, I'm quite sure. Same again?" Palace finished; gutter and tran- ing the way you are, you'll be three years is your chance to help

but still pretty hefty. He was

throne and throne-room, dead in two years, "Same again," aspented Jack, som, expostulating with them very An hour or so later I escorted his supreme

gesture of loyal at most vigorously, and

they weren't him, gently but firmly, on to the devotion exccuted poor Jack

Perhaps himself finished, "too.

There was silence for some leoicing at all comfortable about

Beethoven felt he that when time. The ponderous machine fo almost audibly the Ninth Sym- Jack's brain You can imagine that I took he'd finished the earliest opportunity to make phony, and Shakespeare when creakad. Then suddenly a light my way to Praddock and give he wrote the last words of The started in his ushen eye. It was

Jack became moody. like the spurt of a match. the once over to Jack's minia- Tempest.

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N the Andes pass which

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The doctor had given Jack three years, Jack gave Bucking- ham Palace three years. He just made it.

WORLD COPYRIGHT - RESERVED

..t

| DID IT REALLY HAPPEN?

YES

NO

§ Pet your Bick in the space ahors and keep this post «by you, wwii] | tomorrow ........ when the answer will be giren—with sometime story in this marina by .......

DENISE ROBINS

Did Saturday's story -- The Edge of Beyond, by Geof- frey Catterell actually happen? The answer: NO.

וז

Late that night, while the shorthand-writer transcribed the words of the song, DawsDI would play over the cylinder. two bars at a time, jotting down the tine and its harmonies, At eight next morning he would After recording a batch of start practising the number. By

which prógrammies

will be ten he would be recording it on heard over the British air this wa

а summer, Dawson stil fort night hence to semi-retreat, in his native Australia, but will be back here for a farewell teur lasting most of 1936.

Big Money

a

For pirating "John, John, Go in Australia a smetics And Put Your Trousers Oi,* Bat awaits him and his wife on Billy Williams success, and sing Darling Point

overlooking ing it into the recording trumpet Sydney Harbour.

Thus he comes full circle. At 19 he viewed Australia solely as a country to get away fruen as quickly as possible. Had he not just won à bass solo com-

in Ballarat? pet foo

"It Peter goes to London," said his singing master, "he'll soon be making a thousand year."

ITS REDEEMER

By BERNARD McTAGGART

*

a.

for five days from breakfast until tea-time, he drew his first big money, £75 in golden sover- eigns.

"Pirates," I observe, “are- and were wicked people."

"Agreed;," says Dawson. "But everybody did it. Pirated sheet music used to be hawked in the streets. Publishers would knock the pirates down and tear up their stocks. Billy Williams once threatened to punch me in the nose but never quite got round to it. Harry Laudr only grinned and told me I had in. |grir-rand voice."

The legislature fought him to Dawson a stalemate.

DO

sing

On his way to £15,000 a year utterly different types of music that he « still wonders (why his Career didn't fall between the stools,

Then he sought more power gentina there is a 26-foot say they ought to have building his political sup- Nothing like the Argen- for the executive bratch on the that otherwise the

Touring the provinces with a high statue of Christ the known better.

port.

tine prosperity resulted, grounds

country would lapse into chaos. team of fellow disc-boosters, he Redeemer.

Nothing happened, in fact,

Again he was fought to ang such things a3 “0 Bukke The general first got him- In 1952, Chile was still in

Than The Cherry" and "Where Under it is an inscription: self the Presidency in 1927. a depressed state. A rocky There were lots of talk stalerante.

F'er You Walk in talls anik And "Sooner shall

economic white tie during the first halt mountains There was a fight going on little ledge between the about deals with Argentina,

of the programme and comic. crumble into dust than the between the President and Andes and the Pacific, she But they all sounded like a progress, peoples of Argentina and the two houses of the legis- has no natural resources big

mambers of the "Stop Your job-with Argentina swallow

need Chile's Tickling Jock" type in kilt and Chile break the peace which lature almost a duplicate but copper and nitrates Japan Peron doing the nitrates and copper. Chila wig after the interval, at the feet of Christ the of the Amerircan Congress and the nitrate business has swallowing. Redeemer they have sworn by constitution. The Presid- never really recovered from to maintain."

enf's opponents controlled the Great Depression. But Chileans are matter. both houses and ground the wheels of legislation to a ing: "Sooner shall these mountains turn into mush- dead halt. rooms than these two coun- tries become one."

·IN A MUDDLE

Three years ago they thought otherwise and

ing has landed them into a muddle such as easy-going democratic Chile has seldom known.

MAYBE A DEAL

In a broadcast just after the election, Peron said: "These two fatherlands may turn into one, having as a flag the solitary star of the General Ibanez declared

Pacific and the fraternity of himself military dictator to

Copper isn't enough to the Argentine sun." break the deadlock,

keep the government in business.

A

vague agreement on "economic He did fine until the

co-operation" pression came and the bot The voters, eyeing the was signed. But it put no tom fell out of the nitrate prosperity in nearby Argen- steaks on Chilean plates. and copper businesses. The tina without enquiring into

de

standstill.

needs Argentina's food and, with expanding Argentine industry - kingrly demending more copper and Argentine agriculture in need of fertiliser, a profitable deal could probably be reached.

JUST WAITING

Versatility

He addresses' Kimself, -" "with impartial efficiency to Viennese comie, opera, smokingenneert mambers, leder and the higher fights of oratorio. Such versa tility, coupled with his song writing knack, has not always been readily forgiven.

Throughout

But Juan Pezon is waiting for the Pacific star to meet the Argentine sun.

tueries, Dawson had, Nan at his side, as- The Chileans are waiting for profesional adviser, Two years

after all-

the change in their think country went bankrupt and the reasons for it (mostly The voters had saddled the mountains to turn into ago Nan Bled while they were

two the general fled. That was that Argentina has lots of General Ibanez with

lush pasture on which cows houses of parliament in 1931.

grow fat quickly), decided packed with his opponents A year later, he was back, that a man with experience That brought things to a neat only to be banished to at being a dictator might be Argentina.

just what they wanted Three years ago was the time when they elected as For-five years he waited somebody who talked a

little like Peron. President General Carlos Then he was granted. ад

Maybe he could do a deal with Argentina. They had known the Between them and 1952 So General Ibanez came general of old and some he devoted himself to re- back.

SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST, LTD. Ibanez del Campo.

HONGKONG

KOWLOON

amnesty:

mushrooma,

visiting Australia. Her younger And General Ibanez is wish- sister, Constance, went out to as he had stayed in Argentina be with her during her last

illness. Only the Communists are shuelding.

#Don't go back"!, They know that the longer the ring Nan lo But Tbanez, now 17, was tow the stalemate lasts, the greater. "Stay in and look aft old to play the dictator,

will by the chaos. The poorer – boy's He was faced with a wave of Chile, the unhappier its strict inspired by the incal workers. The unhapples the 2 Constance, DOĽANIS

workers, the happier Moscow, Mre Dawson sixing La October, he declared a~ And still the slaide of Christ. He baa known me, she andies, "state of slege in the mines, gazes down from the mountains: I "since I was dye"!

y Communight

the old

cond