1955-08-11 — Page 4

·

HUNDRED MILLION CRACKERS A YEAR

EVEN

By

J. W. TAYLOR

en this kind of trade,

up

of

AVEN with a heat-wave places like Japan, Germany, and but British only just passed, Christmas manufacturers are catching is very near for some busy people in Norwich, centre of the world's crackers trade, and other parts of Britain, They make An anffuul hundred million crackers for the Christmas trade, 20 per- cent of which are exported to countries all over the world.

w

The Royal Family have always

the tradition. kept alive erekers at Royal parties during Christmar, particularly at San- dringham. They are always of

pceft design, appropriate, need be, to the type of any special guests who happen to in in the

party. Once the dest

was changed in a hurry so as to innur appropriately the pre- seller of Crown Prince Olaf,

Nimble Fingers

As soon as one Christanas b the over,

they start work on next season's, lices, building up now stocks of crackers varying in size from three-inch midgets

August of requires six-fect glare, Each year feels them approach ing the peak of production and putting in that little extra spurt necessary if special orders for friends across the sea are to be completed in time to calels the carly Christmas overseas matis.

Fulminate of silver, a sub- tance much too sensitive to, by used in bonus, is the chemical used to unvide the hang whee

IIL

'The work of making crackers nimble Angers, and most of it is done by hand. Norwich daughters often follow their mothers in the trade. It takes about five years to train a girl to make some of the more carbonit crackers,

1

Although every care is taken to make the crackers perfect, there are times when they di cupointidy fall to bang at the Christmas party. Most likely a cracker explodes. It is the most cause is damp storage, although dangerous explosive mode 1rently one Arin had heard

need not from a woman Britain, yet réveit.rs

who had found some crackers witch had been left in stere in an gir rald shelter nee 1930. All were in perfect condition in their packed boxes.

worry, for enly 025 of a grain is used and only u few ounces may be stored in a factory at a time. The explosive is detonated by pulling two strips of abrasive again! the chemical-

Special Design

Marifacturers cre

(0 for

having ortlers

THE CHINA ́ MAIL,” THURSDAY, AUGUST 11, 1955.

GILES... Picking up that Space-Age Holiday Mood!

"All right-space-men have landed and captured Grandma and Auntie Vera. Now go and play something that doesn't make quite so much noise."

THE MAN ON THE

erackers, monster

W

BEACH

The old Arab's eyes were light blue, and constantly roving, as if he But was his fantastic story were searching for someone who never came.

true? Tomorrow the answer will be published.

HENEVER I could get out of Beirut iluring the week- ends and escape' always from the white buildings of with special Army cope

headquarters, I

His thin a Jeep or a Eighth Army man.

khaki drill trousers were stained Ope frm in Norwich sucess jumped into fully made an ordered cracker truck and went purring off and baggy. He wore no shoes. containing 12

pigeons. over smooth, sticky, tarred and on the back of his head was Tom Smith, a London conte Another was opened at a party roads to explore the splen- battered topee. But it

faselnated me. crackers to reveal a pretty girl. Others dours of ancient Byblos or light blue and large, constantly

his eyes which Licher, popularised when he saw sweets being de-

things. many coratively, wrapped with tissue from a pair of nylons to a bottle Tyre and Sidon, the dusty roving, as if he were searching paper in Paris. He started by of whisky.

cities of Phoenicia. wrapping sugared almonds round he nuded love messages, Later the bang and substituted a pre-

sent for a sweet,

The war slopped the mam faclure of navcity crackers from

NOW

have contained

Crackers

live

firms are always locking for now conundrums and verses. One firm once employed a barrister to think them up in his spare time in between court cases,

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+

was

for someone who never carne.

He spoke to me in Arabic,

That last summer of 1946, but I was not surprised. With just before the French and no clothes and my dark brown British troops moved out of akin I could easily pass for an the Lebanon, was almost a Arab. I certainly did not look holiday. It was a sleepy like an Army officer.

met. paradise in which one

"Ana Engleese," I explained, smiles, only

Not

many in pidgin Arabic. • countries have such a mix- He raised his bushy grey ture of races and religions, eyebrows, surprised, yet few people are more tolerant.

Down in Palestine the troubles had started-the war from which the new State of Israel would emerge, turning hundreds of thousands of Arabs into homeless refugees. But here, under the Maronite mountains, in the little villages by the side of the Litani River and all along that fertile strip of rocky coast, there was pence.

Pidgin Arabic

For some weeks my favourite a deserted 'retreat had been beach several miles from Beirut.

4

I never bothered to wear bathing costume, for there was no one to see me lying there. hour after hour, basking in the sun.

it was on my fifth or sixth visit that I was surprised by the visitor. He came up so quietly that he was standing over me before I realised he was there: so that I opened my eyes jumped up quickly,

and

an

He was an old man, white

wearing haired, wrinkled. ancient khaki shirt which might have belonged to some once

&

"Ah," he replied, "you Eng- 1lsh. You not Jew?" He spoke with a slight American accent.

DID IT HAPPEN?

Joha

1 replied. "No, not Jewish. I an English, a soldier, Look," And I pointed to my clothes lying in a bundle and led the towel so that he could see the khaki shirt with the three, stars on the shoulder.

"Capitaine

"Good," he said, --very good."

I took the towel, wrapped it around me and sat down.

"Yes," I said, "I did."

"What your name, Capi- taine?"

All Englishmen are George in the Lebanon, it saves time. So I said "George."

"All right, Capitaine George: I tell you why I leave America."

a

him, smash him up, like this."

clenched He brought his

fst down hard on to the white sand.

I sald: "But surely-he must have struggled?"!

"He Oght. young

But I am strong man. First I out Szin on the arm, then I bring chopper down crash on to his head. It is all over."

"And your wife, she was there watching?"

London Express Service

"I think he do this to me, then she deserves to die."

"She zazam. She scream for me to let him go. But I know he is bad man, wicked man, to steal her from me. Such men arrest him on a capital charge should not live. And I see her I would ask for him. He would crying with her long, gold hair be extradited, sent back for trial. hanging down. Then I know trit it is all over for me. So kill her like I kill him." Ho out to sea, across the

"Yes," I said, thinking that he was going to be a bore and I said. "Have a cigarette?" wishing he would let me sun and held cut the packet. He bathe in peace. "Dirst 1 get look one eagerly, and lit it,

married to beautiful girl of 18. Just like a gazed 'Plenty money skworm wrapped in silk. She clear blus water,

had long golden hair, and I I was used to exaggeration love her very much. I give her from Arabs. They seldom meant everything. America is wonder to lie, it was often simply a ful. But when she is dead

matter of showing off, never go back."

"Ah." he rald. "English cigarette. You have some Amerl- can smokeş?”

"No, only English. From the Nauß,"

"American smokes very good, but they cost plenty money. When I am in America I smoke plenty cigarettes, all day.. Dirt cheap over there, but too much money here.".

you

"And when were America?"

knowing I asked, that. mony Lebanese had emigrated to the United States, where the opportunities were so much greater than here,

"When I was a chico-a boy, Many years ago. Is sure

Montgomery wonderful country,"

JOHN MONTGOMERY is a Landon

literary agent who has shown authors how to wrile, in 1933 A published his flest book, Two Men And A Dead personal account al life in a Surrey village with a spantat rescued from Betiersed Degr flags, and he has since produced a history of comic films and now his first" Doral,

Montgomery spent six yourn with the Royal Sussex Ragiment. Born in Edinburgh in 1916 and o bachelor, he lives in a cottage on the Surrey kills.

"Why didn't you stay?"

"I come back to work here, where I was born."

"Bonanas?" I asked:

silkworms.

"No bananas, Plenty silkworms here, know about them, Capitaine?"

"No," I said.

I said, "Of course not. I quite understand."

"No, Capitaine George, don't. I couldn't go back. know why?"

"No," I said.

"I kill her."

you You

"I kill her and I kill the man

2

old story

I said. "But why are you tell- ing me this? How do you know I won't give you away to the police?1i

mü.

"Everyone around here knows It is very old story now. And it is not important, except to me.

But no, he said, he was lucky. They didn't hand him over. Per- haps they understood his crime, So my friend with the searching blue eyes had spent the rest of his to quietly rearing silkworms by the sea.

י

"Well," I said, "I'm going to bave a swim." I rather hoped that whon. I came out of the100 water the old man and bla fantastic story would be gon

But he was still there, sitting. ca the sand,

"I show you my house," he

aid, as I dressed. "You come see my silkworms."

There was no escape., So we walked together up a stony path towards the village.

The chopper

There was a large bamboo but the house, about 5011. I said, "But you loved her, behind "You killed her! But why?" didn't you? How could you kill long and 201t, wide. Inside there

were her if you loved her?"

Inyers of shelves in the When I see her with him, I centre, and more shelves around. she loves. When I hear about go mad. I do not love her enyhe sides, with space to walk them, I watch the house. Every more, I see only the evil thing between them. Paper had been over... wire netting I spread. one knows about them except which has come between us. I rue. They think I am away, but ink-she do this to me, then stretched across the frames, and I stand in the street and look she deserves to die. She kill our on this paper lay thousands of

caterpillars.

up at the windows. Then I go love, so I kill her." inside, and when I open

the

"And they didn't catch you?".

I sev I asked, realising that this was

door

of the bedroom

them together."

"Ah," I gold. "And then?"!

Amy

purt of the sITY.

fried to. They search

"I bang the door and go into all over the country, All the

the

think.

I

Golden tresses

The old man said, "Soon they

other room and sit and nowspapers hunt for me. But go to sleep. Then they change You think. Many minutes, I sit and there are plenty Lebanese in cins, Ther they sleep again, Then I know what to Amrica to help me, friends who and when they wake I give them do. I take a chopper and go understand. They hide me and stleks to climb."

"What for?" I asked, watch- back to the bedroom, but the send me back in a ship. I fool

ing a fat specimen nibbling at a ́ door is locked. She calls out to them all." me, but I break the door down

If the United leaf. with my chopper. Then I kill States Government wanted to inside their cocoons like beauti

"Very beautiful. all wrapped in silk, like lovely girls. You

lke girls, Capitaine?"

It was absurd.

THE DOCTOR'S DILEMMA-WHY DID

D

R

SCHACHT JOIN THE

SCHACHT, the teresting part of the book is famous German finan- his

of his relations account with the Nazi regime. For his cint "wizard," has

shows career vividly

the

one

can

Ger

of

terrible "night of the Jong knives," and only. two days

after the brutal assassination Dr Dollfuss, the Aus- trian

Chancellor,

by Nazl gunmen-an epi- sode which Dr Schacht does not mention.

to Germans in

TIJALMAR

nt

SCHAGIFT Financial

NAZIS?

'always

"They build cocoons.· They sit

ful fair-haired girls, all dressed

in silks. But if I leave them they break out of their, COCOONS and fly away. You cannot trust them, they are like women. I they break, the cocoons the silk Is lost. So you know what I do,

George?"

I sald. "kill them. I steam them

until

the

de. Then we have lies else ceptance of office by Germans,

nk you for the possibility of work where the inflation of the showing me. I Ing from within' out twenties was the result of re- going back to Beirut,

Ho fixed me with his clear blue wards to combat the parations; the rise of Nazism,. excesses of the system." the consequence of the slump in eyes. Then he said:

1031; only Mr Chamberlain No doubt he was quite,

whad not Bown to Munich, the sincers, just as the anti- Nazi generals were quite Army would

hay "they"

who sincere, iD believing that they could do more are responsible, never "we"" It. Bold" """We can still be frien

The

ditem

have

Hiller. It is always

depoort 't believe me, Capi-

"Oh,

George,

my

You don't bellevo wife in America." never mind about

He

"Walt said,

a minute. When he returned he was carry Ing an old wooden box bouni with rusty iron bands...

written his memoirs. What dilemma which faced so many an extraordinary career of respectable Conservative

Hitler's accession to vicissitudes he recounts: mane an

power. No

one can doubt that Schachi Was, and of the Reichsbank

a is, President and victor over inflation in the thoroughly decent and upright By then the, character architect of man of Righ moral standards, of Hitler's rule must nineteen-twenties;

good by remaining in is no accident that the Germans ac- have been clear, everi te

office than

peoples, most addioted. Hitler's economy in the thirties; and that he was rightly

39: quitted at Nuremburg. But no, informed foreigners, and dismissed from power in 1939;

to cloudy and fallacious theories of confirmed to in favour by resigning are, of arrested

doubt and accused of high

too, that

of historical inevita his certainly

pro-Nazis,

Marx. Hegel, Spengler which treason by the Nazis in 1944; dnan

Inancial expertise was of the Dr Schacht's high posi

was genuine, but the de- depict the individual as the box towards me. It was full of Lifting the lid he turned the, cision taken arrested and accused of crimes greatest use to Hitler, and that ton. It is true tha

was, cer with

uncontrollable, mir-ne, golden treats. this point was

victim of vast, against humanity by the Allles the presence of a man,

when

wrong. The only tainly

As for ex- at Nuren Schacht's prestige and inter- made against him

give impersonal, forces. result was to

Then he parted the strändṣ in 1948; acquitted.

Schacht, they must do burg, only to face interminable grity, as chief economic adviser Naremburg his lawyer

(and showed me something lying emclency and stability porta like

their

duty-as experts. It is underneath, at the bottom of the valuable denazification

at was proceedings

asset to the countered by citing an Wizard

a. to

egime which article, written in 1984 the hands of his

those not for them to query the box? badly

Something lang with com now regime.

noeded

inscrutable proces behind the wooden handle, 40 patriote.

by the late Lord Rothermere, qualities; and, as

can but course. of history. Finally cleared in 1948, ho

containing the expression: "Hitler ing Hitler, one

the words of the most emerges a free but financially

is one of a direct line of leaders authoritative historian of these ruined man at the age of 71.

of humanity who seldom riss et

ents, Me J. W. Wheeler Nothing daunted, he writes a

"The self-delusion Why did he join? He won more than once in every two or manifested by men who could we may think him, we confor best-seller

about his wartime retirement when Hitler invited experiences, flies to Egypt, him to resume his presidency of three centuries." The court, Persia, Syria and Indonesia, the Rolchsbank in March 1933, however; declined to accept and should have known better help admiring him I only for where his advice as a financial to can, perhaps claim that at this as evidence.

la something of which only his Indomitable vitality, and his Germans are capable."

determination to carve out a expert la eagerly sought, and this stage the true nature of his

career. After finally, in 1983," he sets up his Etler was not apparent.

Dr Schacht, for all his virtues, fretti own private bank in Dusseldorf.

striking example of the

own

dorf: even speaks of "my hope that it The truth is that, like most

ме

ન

for

'Nevertheless, however wrong

Dr Schacht'a'=' memoirs have would be possible to guide this. German Consorvallyos,, Bchacht® disastrous non-politicality, or, in SEA. Ope

an agreeably astringent-touch

ancestors lived": to, be 190, MinLets us - hope - that: other words, political, frrespon ability which makes the Ger Schacht's next, 44, yours will bo man that civilised, industrious, a calm and prosperous ar ond, thost efficient race mso often flint 70 have been violent and the pray to political advan- dirburbed. WYSPACE to turensin. The blame for Corman,

and are very readable, through to the path of righteous approved on the whole of the

the news,” But this excuse, cannot, Nazi regime: at the eginning out Undoubtedly. the most in apply to his acceptance of the although he deptor

Ministry of Economis. Affairs on features such as July 27, 1034, fou

four week afterő:

a 1

* My Hire Beventjasta: Years, by the bloody to suppression 17 och which th

WRoehm and his followers, Slim- modacato. He expla

zikdimer: Schacht · falian:

mitigns.

atsumillan), sobording to the

Robert Blake

This is the chopper,,, he a}}, WORLD COPYRIGHT RESERVED

DID IT REALLY HAPPEN?

YES NO