1959-01-23 — Page 4

COVER

YOUR EARS!

How

-or the Conversing Travellers will get you

are your car lobes? Are they appealing pink pendants glowing with your warm, chatty, generous personality? Or do they fit,

T

/

THE CHINA MAIL,

A

FRIDAY, JANUARY 23, ~1959.

city of skyscrapers

lies dying on

BRIAN GARDNER

sonds this report on the Belgian Congo, one of the world's strangest forritories. Ton yours ago its capital, Leopoldville, was one the world's great boom citipa. How it is falling into the grip of a sinister, aorla ampllness.

HE little steamer chugged up the Congo. The great river,

a mile across, flowed steadily past. I was on my way to Leopoldville, capital of the Belgian Congo, and scene recently

close and taciturn, to your unfriendly, unprepared-of bloody riots, in which 71 to-listen ears?

-

Either way they're a tload giveaway to the eager members of a year-old association enlied The Conversing Travellers Association.

They are about 300 men and 100

who want to ke Weinen

you challing in the

and buses

carriages

sup-

"Aah," sald Mr Gullick, "I always mention my wife in the first sentence. I say something ke, 'My wife said I'd never

train." catch this

Then they know they've got nothing to fear,"

railway

Mrs Gulick, round, reassur- lobed, beautifully where, and

approval omed her

at this tactic.

find yourself "Don't you talking to an awful lot of bores.

mean people who've operations? I asked.

Britons are traditionally posed to be at their most silent.

And their

Mr founder,

this Gullick, Francis

hap sovereign method

of finding out whether he's got into carriagetu) of purposely silent people, or just shyly silent

bad

ones

"I quickly read the ear lobes travelers Hike of my fellow this," He peered forward annng imaginary ears, then sat back ไว calculate.

Threr nice

and two ones," he concluded..

there menning

three were

with the curringe people in their ear lobes dangling and two with them fucked up.

"Then I pick the nicest of the nice ones and say 'Possibly you have seen this badge. It you haven't can I bore you for exactly three minutes, and no longer?"

الله

Mr Gullick then brandished

gleamed lapel in which modest navy bitte and while badge with the initials CTA. on 11.

A choice

there.

-1

had

"An operation boring?" said Mr Guels, aghast with sur- prise. "Why, the human body fascinating thing is the mot

Africans were killed.

I sat back on the bench beneath the funnel, amazed at the sight before me. On the far bank of the river was an incredible panorama of skyscrapers. They pointed to the equatorial sky lhe a mirage of some great American city.

I was incredible because even in 1950 it Is not the sort of thing one experts on the edge of the jungle, 150 miles up the Congo.

As we got closer I saw the greni array of cranes and steamers drawn up beside the These tall, while boats, quny. like houses on ferries, reminis-

01 cent the Mississippi, puff their way to Stanleyville, 1,000 miles up river. The journey, one of the last great river trips left in the world, takes a week.

At the Immigration centre an

Hare is. How could it be bor-shere, in the shadow of the sky-

towering above, scrapers in

waited in a hut.

I

Till then I hard thought Mir ullick 'a fairly courageous I was a te apprenhensive. I man... now I had glimpsed had no visn, not even the thres his Inexhaustible wonderment. photographs I had been told to 5. rely

extraordinary get in London. Some ings

I was entering into what have happened

Be said to conversational dur ng

of the most notorious police States in the rusading? "No, nothing really,

world, and I

harl I've just met a lot of interest-

been told g people."

throughout West Africa that

Tot wel

runt

Surely there had been nota-newspapermen wities?" "Well, 1 once shared

taxi with J. B. Priestley and there was a Lelevisjon uctor whose name I can't remember who brgued me not to get off

1

Letchworth because he was having such a lovely fine talk- ing to me.

But richer ore, I reminded han, may yet he within talking distance. He told me of his dreams of the day when there would be thousands of CTA. members-helt sharp apprals- ing eyes scanning ear lobes and estimating

chances.

their chatting.

He believed in li all so pas- sionately that he had taken a jub near his home in Edgware

Any

normal

Inbe-endowed fellow passenger, who accord- ng to Mr Cullick's theory has been privately aching to have a chat in any case, will apon And himself in the rich full world of Mr Gullick's con-

so that at lunch-time he could versation. Or it he prefers it, in the attentive sympathetic carry on with the correspon- confessional Mr Gullick's dence the association has pro listering powers.

vokel. (For mem bers of the association are sup- posed to listen as well as con- verse.)

Other Jobe-spotlers join in and British Rallways car do their worst in the way of hold-

car

thought of all the lonely lobes silting in railway clages all over Britain. And wondered why on earth Mr Gullick could not leave them alone.

ups, delays and cold carriages Fitxibility and realism re- they've got their lobes to vecfed in the Metropolitan keep them warm and chatting, Drinking Fountain and Cattle

Did I pass the lobe test, I Trough Association's report:

wondered, too shy to put my hand up to my ear and find out.

Mr Gullick rtasured

me.

"There is nowadays little demand for cattle troughs, and such demand there is can be

"Your ears are all right. Not met by transferring troughs

the generous cars of a fool or the selfish one of a misery."

"What happens when the right sort of lobes belong to a pretty girl?" I asked. "Boesn't scho Father suspect your motives?"

which have become redundant

In one locality to district

onc

were

come in the Congo.

NO TROUBLE

A Belgian offelal, sweating In a khaki uniform, walked in. He look my passport, lazily up- plied a rubber stani. and handed it back.

01

the Congo banks

it as his private domain. Bel- is still blush at the mention of his rule. By the turn of the sentury thousands had died the red rubber" scandats,

13

African slaves, working in the plantations, were expected to produce a certain amount of rubber. If they did not, then the Belgians chopped off a limb. To flood the worhl market with rubber. Leopold thought nothing of murdering large numbers of African slaves.

THE RICHEST

News of this leaked cut to the world, and because of the international outery, the Belgian Government was forced in 1908 to take the Congo from Leopold -much against is will, as the effort to get the rubber hardly seemed worth it,

. LEOPOLDVILLE-Zpacious boulevards, but now, so few people.

£1,000 million

n year (In Kenya, for instance, they were about £20,000,000 at this time). But uranium is not essential for hydrogen bombs. The good times are over for the Congo.

Now that Afrien is in ferment, and the days of European rule in that continent seem num- bered, I went to the Congo to see what was happening there.

1 drove

through the streets of the fantastic city of Leopold ville,

600.

Wide boulevards strelched away for as far as the eye could Skyscrapers, modern office

and hotels lined blocks.

the streets of the city centre,

Further out, In the spacious

riding crops. Men lead huge No one was listening. There mastits before them.

was hardly anyone to "ilsten. Yet there was something very A few army offers sal sadly strange about Leu.

glasse Angering their

The The place-huge, white, and place was like an empty shell- spotless-was almost deserted, but I was getting used to that Apart ΙΣΟΠ the occasional by now. Belgian, there was no one to

"This city was built at the see. The shops, always with white

Ume of the Korean War," sald attendants (reading

my friend. There was a great books), were empty. There were вост here then. Our large posters advertising vacant materials of copper, uranium, shops, offices, and Industrial and diamonds were in demand. sites.

Also many Germans, Belgians, and French feared that the war

EMPTY SHELL There was not an African in sight.

raw

his

I wondered if Leo would one day be one of those ruined citles that startled explorers stumble across in the under- growth.

Next day we saw the siguts. The most famous place in Leo is the monument to the explorer Stanley, which looks down from a bill on to the great elly below.

Beyond the elty ile the hills und the forest of Africa. Stanley was the first white man to pass this way, and at Leo he set up one of his main

camps,

Then we EDW the native quarter. This is an immenso settlement of long dust tracks and Uny shocks, made of any- thing handy. It is all arranged in neat blocks. As shanty towns go, it was extremely orderly, But the natives here drink up to 70 per cent of their incomes→→→→ as high as anywhere in the world. I was not surprisett

"Of course, thero is much unemployment here now," said friend "The people are becoming restless."

my

'NONSENSE'

"Of course," I said. "But the police are every where."

Indeed they were. They career through the streets of the na Jeep, in white helmets and blue tive quarter, two or three to a uniforms. Long truncheons

dangle from their wrists.

After dark, Africans are not

might spread to Europe. They invested a lot of their fortunes allowed in the European city Its not easy finding anyone here. Leo seemed as safe and of Leo without a permit. in Leo who is willing to talk remote a place as anywhere."

He shrugged and waved 10 about anything apart from the

weather. They look over their hand. shoulders at the mention of politics. And, unfortunately, the weather is always the same, Hot. Eventually, in the restaurant

suburbs. which seemned stretch for ever, were some of the most colossal blocke flats have ever seen.

FASHIONABLE

of

no secret

about

n

"That is to be the governor's puince." We were passing huge half-built building, already larger thun Buckingham Palace. 1 knew that an African assembly of sorts was allowed to meet somewhere in

They inade

THE SIGHTS

"Now-the biggest elephant all these

Leo, and I asked to see it.

course.

said. " is buildings.

how many

ΣΤΟΥ

"I am sorry, but I'm afraid don't know where it is,

I

of the Palace Hotel, I met a Belgian who was shortly going For 40 years the world heard

home after many years in Leo in Africa: but a white one. of little of the Belgian Congo. Then

shops, with There is Air-conditioned In 1945 an atomic bomb was

In 1950 there was believe they hold their meet- foods direct

Paris, this place," he from dropped Hiroshima. For atom Brussels, London, and New quite simple. There are 16,000 only one akyscraper here, now I ings in the gymnasium of some

sold bombs you need urahium. And York.

everything that whites here and 350,000 natives, don't know

there Bchool,"

My friend dropped me back where did the uranium conie money could buy.

The whites live in a city almost are."

In the Boulevard Albert. As I from? From the Belgian, Copgo. The Belgians aře sold, the size of Paris. The Africans

The violinist phyed on to the said before, there are 10,000 Belgium suddenly became one comfort-loving people. There Hve in a sort of camp outside.

The Bies whites in the city, and 330,000 of the richest countries in the are very few foreigners In Tomorrow we shall go to see it almost empty room.

and mosquitoes waltzed together black people. The whites appear world. While other European "Leb," as it is called by the A iro were playing some on the fablecloth beside my to be living on a keg of dyna-

all gut cities struggled to shake off the inhabitants--nearly

court music. This was plate.

mile-I am glad I am not one after-eflects of the war, Brussels Belgians. The women stroll the only white band I had seen

of them. was basking in prosperity. The cown the fashionable Boulevard playing in Africa. A woman was exports of the Congo were Albert in breeches, Aleking their passionately playing a violin,

"There we are, monsieur," be said. I swear he never looked at me once during the whole operation.

The Belgian Congo is the ensiest country I know to Into. For whites.

The original owner of the Congo was Leopold II, who had

נתון are

AND THE CARAVELLE IS THEIR NEW STAR AIRCRAFT

A Silent Giant With

where a new need for one of THIS

them has arisen."

Can anyone think where?

-Anne Sharpley (London Express Service).

A gracious welcome to your guests

DRY FLY SHERRY

DRY FLY SHERRY

More more people are drinking DRY FLY SHERRY

A

Sting In Its

summer Britain and Francc celebrate the

golden jubilee of the first cross-Channel flight

by Frenchman Louis Bleriot. It was a feat- that shock Edwardian Britain.

And in this Jubilee year- new-style jet airliners with

Tail

By JAMES STUART

only a few months from now engines mounted at the rear of the airline's general manager in one hour 55 minutes.

by Mr Vagn Christensen, ing in July, will take only

new airplane from across the the fuselage. Channel, first of the jet age air- liners on the European routes is going to give Britain another shake-up.

In the early days of flying we used to sec airplanes with "pusher" type alrscrews mounted behind the wings. Its name: The Caravelle. Now that the modern airliner With this airplane from the gets its drive by the hammer- Sud-Aviation works, France's force thrust of the jet, designers nationalised aircraft Industry is are agreed that the logical place about to jump into the land on for this "pus ads the vast air network in Europe, the back of the aircraft and overflow the. Continental possible. boundaries into Asla and North Africa,

TV IN THE AIR

the

Britain.

Sud-Aviation has been making Next your SAS will get new a big sales drive with

Others have been American DC.3 long-range air Caravelle. liners to speed up its California- ordered for Algeria and Morocco, Europe-Japan route over the Brazil and Finland, North Pole. The airline, operated Jointly by Denmark, Sweden und Norway, is combining the U.S. Convair 850's into an ali- y la the newest thlag being Caravelle and DC.0 With new

fel fleet for short, medium and considered for airline pas- Tlic advantages are clear. long-range fights.

senger. The jet age, will almost With 18 Caravelles From the passenger's point of

expected ent passenger cabins, Cas view, jet noise is reduced to the before the end of this year usher-in entertainment For absolute minimum, and the fights from London Airport to travellers as they By seven or Caravelle isprobably-the-Copenhagen, Siositholm_and_ciglit miles above the earth quietest airliner of all to ride in, 05:0 will soon bo gally Muslo in the air has been tried This lead will be held until It is so quiet that en many speeded-up. British European Airways gets demonstration flights mysle has Lendon-Copenhagen by Cara-

played in the colin, and velte, will take just over Comet 4B's on the longer Con- been tinental routes next year. Even enjoyed by the passengers.

hour. then; only six Comets will be Technically, the engines-at- Air France's service from #natched in the speed race the back design gives a taster London to Nice, probably start- "gainst two large Acete of airplane. The Caravelle's engine. Caravelles,

less wings are kaffe-edged and able to cut through the air more easily.

Hard fight

For sheer sperd HEA faces a hard fight until it receives the new 800 m.p.h. D.. 121 jets In a few years' time,

озул

Faster

дл

out successfully, and soon pas- sengers are expected to be able to keep in touch with their business affairs on the ground by making telephone calls from their 500 m.p.h. jet airliner.

ROUND-UP

But if the Caravelle takes any traftle from British arlines, until we can fly our

Thus the 70-passenger airtiner COLOURS REPAIRED BY NUNS European service jets. the fit could take more) cruises at British aircraft industry at least 316 m.p.b. with only two jet COLOURS of the 2nd. Battalion The Green Howards are again has done well out of the engines. The bigger and heavier

being repaired by nuns of Middlesbrough, Yorkshire. They French airliner,

European Comet needs four repaired the colours six years ago in readiness for the Coronation The Sud-Aviation concern is Avots to drive it at 532 m.p.h.

parade. The Battalion was disbanded a few years ago and the France's biggest manufacturer, Our D.H. 121, and the big Colours, presented to the Battalion in 1909 by Queen Alexandra, Hut 14 British firms have helped inter-Continental Vickers VC-10 to make the Caravelle,

for BOAC's future operations, the new Yorkahiro Brigade at Strensall.

are expected to be laid up or transferred to the headquarters of Chief among lis Bríúsh equip- will use this, style, ment are the two Rolls-Royce

Two of Europe's major airlines,

EX-W.R.A.F. OFFICER SAILS ATLANTIC Avon jet engines, the same as in Scandinavian Airlines System | CAILING to Australia in a 39-footer yacht with her husband Is the Comet-except that the and Air France, are to use Mr Murray Davis, formerly Women's Royal Air Force Officer. British airliner has four.

Caravelles soon, SAS is to use

Barbara Keefe who wne Asistant Adjutant of the 2nd. Thelical The nose of the airliner is them first on the routes linking Air Forco at Muenchen Gladbach. Her husband, an' Australian, more or less identical with the the Scandinavian capitals with was an Air Ministry Information Omeer there. The voyage began Comet's.

the Middle East,

on the canals through France to the Mediterranean mod on to Starting date for BÁS is to be Gibraltar and the Canary Isler. They have now crossed tho announced at a party in London 'Atlantle and reiched' Barbador, senz

But there the similarity ends. "The Caravelle is the first of the

I went into a little bar, made up to look like somewhere in Brussels. Empty, of course.

"At that time many Europeans slept in their cars. You had to book on hotel room n year in advance. Now you can get a I got talking to the propric- that or 10QI ten minutes."

tor.

"In Brussels they say we look I returned to my hotel (in the under our beds at night, and rush they had forgotten to leck our doors," he said. "It's bulld а restaurant there}

nonsense. I go down to the through the quiet streeta. Two native town to do my shopping. Belgians were playing tennis on feel O.K. I never lock my a Boodlit court. They were the door." only two people I saw in a quarter of an hour's walk.

i did not believe him.

-London Express Service).

Friell

"Do excuse us but wa think this sit-down strike lo a wizard idea | "^

JOE'S ALL-NIGHT¿

(CAFE,

"Do you think 1'3 ba sate, Sebastian? Remember what

the Home Sicretary said abour dam of vica,”

WAS A

TEEN-AGE WEREWOLF

(*; I think we're getting somaschinen är fint, hoes, Hare's"