THIS is the Gin
GORDONS
DRY GIN
DIGY LADDER 10103000,
DE APELLATION
59 MÊN DAGPETTY THE MOTOR
KSMESÉLT JERODE A ČR, LIT
Quality Incomparable
Gordon's
Stands Supreme
Sole Distributor: DODWELL & COMPANY LIMITED
THE CREAM OF THEM ALL!
WHAT
A MAN!
Vaseline
#HAIRS ¿CREAM
"VASELINE" HAIR CREAM CERTAINLY MAKES A MAN LOOK
HIS BESTI
Vaseline
BRAND
HAIR CREAM
PREPARED FROM VITAMINISED OILS
ON SALE AT ALL STORES
"Vaselina" is a registered trade mark of Chesebrouch Pond's inc
Sale Agents JARDINE, MATHESON & CO., LTD
B
Зорея.
THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, - JANUARY 11, 1958.
Angry? No-1 write
for cash
MacLean
Near LUCERNE,
£50,000 A BOOK
EYOND my window in this silent Swiss valley, beyond the silent lake, a sheet of cloud is slowly lifting from the mountains like a safety curtain. Already I can see chalets dotted like toys on the
Soon I'll see the snow-caked peaks themselves. It is a fascinat ing scene, but the high attic room where I am typing is more fascinut- ing still. Let me explain why.
It is not because of the furniture. Apart from this desk the room has no furni- ture, but it is the desk that matters.
On it is a thick wad of typowritten pages.
On the pages are some 98,000 words. Their total value-perhaps £50,000.
BUT BEHIND THE
MONEY MOTIVE LIES ANOTHER SPUR ..
60W
threw
F
Looking into the flames he Two years ago said: Things were pretty bad, the Book Society a short story
vast so when competition in the local paper party for Mac- for the Leail. The 50s- I had a shot. Purely
sipa wrote: "Mr MacLean cash, I need hardly say."
wearing
was Fult
For this big wooden house by the Swiss lake was built for the most extra ordinary author of our
a MacLean's is a quick Scot's Limes.. This quiet room voice. "I wrote that story on which bagged at under the big Swiss eaves The whole place trembled when
an old 1904 Oliver typewriter. the knees,” is where he taps out those i pressed the Reyn. I bough! profitable words from 8.30 it when I was 17. to five every day.
"I had intended writing even then, you know, but I decided This is the new home of there was no money in it. Mr Alistair MacLean.
Who can blame me for coming out here to visit
Muclean!
Consider
story,
bis
Waiting on
Lucerne platform
) says
Martin
"The cow hells wore awful noisy at first."
at
was Mr MacLoun, wearing a were awital pole first" doing fine, man,"
pre- Maclean. stilt which bagged at the knees, MacLean swept along a
eipice. He said: "Your trouble Since then I've noticed only is you're used to interviewing two symbols of success,
uthors, I'm no author. A real author enjoys writing. I hate
-lke all work."
One is the new house with central heating. The ether
cen Mercedes Benz.
How wrong I was," Everyone now knows how not WTOR. MacLean's story only brought him £100 as first
As fantastic prize. It brought à publisher from Collins to suggest he should write a novel,
HE WAS BROKE
Just three Christmases R40 be was living with his German wile Gisela and newborn soni Lachlan in furnished rooms in Glasgow.
MacLean, then 31, was school- Icaching and he was broke.
Then in his beautiful new house by the Inke Alistair MacLean told me about that winter in Glasgow,
my
fourth He poured me whisky (just a wee nightcap"). He pushed more wood on the fire. "We've got central heut ing, but I made them build in a proper. Are too.")
MacLean wrote one.. He It called it H.M.S. Ulysses. earned him at least £60,000.
'By the wood fire I asked, "Did you give
up teaching then?"
::
"Och, no, I waited till they accepted my next book, The Gun of Navarone. That wasn't Just mind
modesty,
Navarone put up the total MacLean sales to half a million MacLean decided to move to Switzerland,
When
arrived firat Lucerne I was watching to nee had the golden aler how altered MacLean.
n
ROBERT PITMAN'S
book page
said
silting here that moon would Inspire us."
But what doen inspire Mac- Lean? I think I lutow.
At the end our ride Gisela MacLean was waiting for us, In an accent which very nice- Jy blends Scottish and German she said: "I hope you don't mind a real Scottish high tea instead of dinner."
I didn't. Later we sat by the wood fire. Gisela said, "I must go ond put this maar arzimal in Luchian's shoe. It's a custom wa have at home. Lachion thinks Saula Claus puts them there,"
WASHED DISHES
I said to Allstalr: "How did you first meet?".
"After the Navy I want to work in Surrey hospital during a vacation. I rubbed floors" and washed dishes. Gisela was working there too."
Gisela felched in the coffee. Wo hiked about MacLean's now books (800T By JAVA HEAD, which is certain to mop up the Christmas book-tokers when it le gallished by Collina In January, and a brand-new theme for MacLean a bookc set Mr in Hungary, the book which is lying in typescript on this desk).
The road dipped. The Elger MacLean said, "I've got to get mountain rose on our right off sea alertes sometime but of We got out into the cold air course nobody may buy the and looked up at the sheer Hungary book. You never face where three men died lask know.
year.
feboat
Mr MacLean made me fake' a the wheel. Somehow Loon 49 Possible Mr turn at
F said: That Incident In MacLean look me out in the the
ear got down into Inter- Ulysser where the Mercedes. We drove up and laken. We stopped to admire drifts in with sallors sitting up acroes a mountain pass. the Jungfrau looming beyond grinning and the captain hold Cloudy hung in the trees like
the red roofs,
for.
JANGLE
BOOM
I remembered MacLean had been a torpedo operator in the Navy. I said: "Someone Fald you wrote Ulysses out of anger
He said: "Isn't this belter at the way the Arctic convoya than sitting and asking a lot of were run." boring questions about books?"
Thỏ clouds broke. To our left
MacLean
shoot
his
head
tiny houses couls be seen half sadly. "No, no. There was no a mile below, From a vast cliff anger in it. There's just ond of rock # waterfall drooped motive behind all my frozen.
The cash motive,"
I ald: "Has living affected your writing?"
here
MacLean rounded a harpin bend. He said: "The row bells
books.
ing the ter-all frozen to death-ld you see that your solf?"
JUST FICTION
We talked about other writers. About A. J. Cronin ("He fuce just seven miles from here"), about Alistair's father, an In- minister whose verness-shire printed sermons take chief place on Alistair's bookshelf ("I know nothing about writing but he was really good. I wish I could reuch his standard, some day").
Tho are burned low. Wo finished the last of our wed nightchips.
QU
In the middle of the night I heard little Lachlan whimper in hla sleep, Then I beard pattering of feet. A volce gently "All right, laddie, ot right."
"I saw men dead in a life- hoat, but not grinning. not holding the tiler. No. That's the sort of ham you have to put in."
I!
was getting dark. We said: turne: back. The moon rose high in the mountalas, spilling slivers of light across Lake
the was getting used to left-hand drive. I pushed the Brienz Mercedes into top, gear. Child- rem cowered against a bridge. A donkey cart swerved, "You're It' we
It was Alistair
the tough spectailst in novel,
ផាង . comforting
MacLean,
WEE
arhail
MacLean said: "Look at that person who is the motive behind
were two roat writers the cash motive.
TOKYO
AND
TAIPEI YH-K-A
Rouve
3 JET-PROP SERVICES TO TAIPEI-
Consult
your
travel agent
or telephone
Hong Kong.
Airways
6136B
(24 hrs a day).
3 TO TOKYO-WEEKLY
HONG KONG AIRWAYS. VISCOUNT
HONG KONG AIRWAYS" LIMITED.
loan-
A
The EVA BARTOK story
The
The marquis in the limelight
rueful
BOUT the Marquis of Milford Haven, one of his
more distinguished friends once made a
The trouble with David," he said, "is remark: that he just can't help getting into the act," "
He did not mean to suggest that Milford Haven is a Booker after publicity. When you have his name and background the publicity seeks out you.
And in fact, as his friends well know, what David Milford Haven has spent his life searching for is something with a much warmer glow than the limelight.
He never
Aecins more
lonely than when he is sur rounded by people who know him, az never more in need of solid affection than when his name is linked with a worTERIJ
off.
Still, hay hay nonetheless,
LEONARD MOSLEY
concludes his portrais
of a surprising woman:
+
They met at a crucial period in her life. She was 23 years She had escaped from old.
But what war-torn Hungary.
for all her had she to show
collisions bitter, disillusioning with the facts of life in the out- sido work? Only a modest success in fims, and a British passport.
Her third husband, William Wordsworth, had helped her enormously from the Brst moment they met. And she said: "I will always be grate» ful to him.
He followed followed her around the friendship blew hot and cold.
tt
PART TWO
gens, did anyone know whether
he or Milford Haven was going to be her tourth husband?
The courtship by Jurgens rati parallel with the friendship of Milford Haven right from the start.
When she was with Milford Haven she said: "Curd Jurgony. will be my Husband Number "Four."
Eva indicated that she was not. defending Wordsworth's Bult
wife was divorce action
But
EYA BAKTOK She to gratajul.
when
she was with there were reports of for desertion, and Milford Jurgens
beginning quarrels, one of them so violent to that Jurgens was reported
"For six years I had been New
have been asked to leave a studying the way of life as set. Rome hotel and Eva was taken out by the works of Gurdijeft, Quspensity and Mr Bennett,
in
Haven's her York.
Not that they allowed these sad legal processes to keep them apart. Milford Haven' was. "getting into the act" more than ever: holidays with Eva in Capri and Klizbuchel, trips
with her to Germany,
Parallel
-
Been
to hospital.
"I slipped on the marble floor and then I heard that Subuh and fell," she said and would bad cone to England from not make any
more comment Indonesia to work with Bennett, than that last week, except to say:
"I went to see them, and they gave me confidence and hope. "I made up my mind.
}
"How can you possibly tell the truth about a marriage when
"I knew the risk, for all tha it means hurting someone? Just leave it at this: Curd and I are doctors had warned me of it.
- both actors and perhaps We Of course I was frightened, but
became a little jealous of each I decided I had to go on.” other's success,"
Crucial
"The misunderstanding over our marriage is something I chall always regret. The fact when a star such as you GuELL me," I sold to Eva,
Today her mother is look- that it'did not work out was
Ing
atter
it In Surrey is having a romance and you
while more my Lault than his.”
sho
in films
Ger- Milford Haven's friendship insist that it is your private
many. Whatever else may bo sald about this well-publicised an almosti compulsive habit self on the same pláne "beaverEva an enormous boost of affair, why do you have to op- pear in sich well-frequented
but so for fatherless baby, i of being there when the cause I just happened to be self-condence.
well-publicized, places to the most recent and seems to have wrought a re cameras azee clicking and going there myself."
To judge from newspaper places where you know you most crucial phase of Eva's markable change in Eva Dastok the flashlights. are going.
reports, it would seem as are bound to be When Eva Bartok ap Mitford Haven and Eva Bartok, photographat? How do you ex-
and life. "The pain had started,"
she said. "I had been to about She has become relaxed and peared in her first play atop their first meeting, were poet anyone to believe you ning different doctors in all the easy-going where, hi the past, Britain Milford. Haven always together. In fact, their when you say you want only countries I had visited, and they she was uncertain, and insecure.
privacy?"
"Sometimes," Eva replied, had all told ma' the same thing. She does not seem to be warled anyy mbre, particularly about country, watching her ppr
"you just have to go out
"There was something wrong men. formance night after night! -.
publicly or you would die of with me, nat unless it was put claustrophobia. I
Do you always pro- right I would dia IN the matter of his friend-
"Once upon a umo I needed fchred to choose small, private wonder I didn't care much their companionship but was ship with Eva Bartok,
places.
about what they were saying naver able to trust them, sho he has always been willing
HEX were not unaware, of
about mot"
ald. "Now' 1.know thant ›looking to accept front-page pub
the flaws in their charac- "But it you are always hiding ters; nor the soolat fiets of life and dodging into secrothavens Sho flow from Hollywood to for a man with all the qualities licity in order, to demon
"I would" describe him,” she in the world, in which they you get a hunted feeling. You Canines and then to London, I used to dream about le like [strato his close affection for
Munich
4 mound, and though prophets have to come out into the open and that was when she learned loofding for perfections and that Impossible. Thore; is no such her. It is not merely at sold first nights and night club, var in the nest sense conthly forecast that they alt just for your peace of that her baby was coming. And.
of the word. I mean that he far would soon be married, both of mind?
kkum Bartok, had to face the thing as a perfect man, and you parties that he is seen with
dilemma of her lifehould the won't got happiness trying to But every time Eve come out have the operation to save her fira one." her.
have the
- @fo:mtalled. + “But 'I ¦ will tell world how Amdamentally de Norf that period of their into the open air with one 150, or should sho
to be triking paný? man the ovenierd
you on watJEK, VROMAN GAM about another. Untin, few "They have never given him.
"Well, you know, what hap happinen and Heinkelenti Both of thed were all days before her wedding with
having a baby married
though the Gorman film' star Curd Jur- penda?” she makes the country. He finitis himpe- Drama: Som Land
He turns up at airports to say goodbye to her when
A B.O.A.G.. / JARDINE" ENTERPR she is trying to slip out of
At the London, opening he was in the audioice REKIN.
Eva maires no secret of her araliude for David Milford Haven's friendship.
The flaws
a simple, gentle man who has them werd award that it never been able to show that wouldn't" "work" out that » way, :
cenò'ho la
a chance, and Eve. La
5.
to
Dy
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.