IN
THE CHINA MAIL,
AS A WRITER, HIS VÍSITS TO WORLD LEADERS SAVE HIM MONEY
Marte
great Chap
Verwo First clas good fellow chap
Franco, [Splendid Fellow
his country study the eminent author frown-
ed. He had almost finished his book. It was, he knew, the first work of its kind ever written.
He had discussed it with the leaders of Europe, India, Russia, and' China.
But in order
to complete a chapter he still had one tantalising question to tackle,
Suddenly his sharp nose twitched. He saw the very words. He picked up his pencil and wrote:-
he has today. would he have been able to achiene what Aluses did My answer would be No,
for
The author paused moment. then added, in fair- ness: "Ner could Moses to what de Gaulle is doing today. Moses was exactly right for has own time and in France, de Gandle is ight for his."
Ce more sentener remained
written. to p
auth.r The It ward- whide it.
"In fact, man is the profuel of bie nge"
(*
books
credi! to their
PRINESLIDE
Is
Tito
Nehru splendid Lype
Mao
great chap
top mol
this why
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 1961.
Monty must
scribble on?
by ROBERT PITMAN
The real Gilbert Harding
GILBERT HARDING. By hi
private secretary, Roger Storey, Barrie and Rock- cliff, 15s.
TN writing about his into
IN
employer, Gilbert Har- ding, Roger Storey steps warily along the neutral strip between inanity and betrayal.
ilere, then, are no sensa- floral breaches of confidence If, indeed, any were lett to be made!
On the other hand, ndila- tion is missing. The Harding who emerges is no saint with a crumpled halo.
Indignities
These are Storey's memoirs of eight years of servitude, Count- he les were the indignities endured: The torrenthal abuse ("You abandoned me. Vall I've 1x4fish-creeping creature! been awake for an hour, calling and enilly").
(**It
The public dismissals must be obvious to even your Intellect warned and moronie that 1 can no longer retain your services").
And all the other embarass- menta which flowed tuturnity enough from employment by ho alcoholle tyrant of uncertain temper.
He
Storey, I feel, was hardly the man for such an assignment. He has a sensitive nature. on his Tears come all
Ex
slight in physique. He was not capable of lifting is employer from the floor where he lay in a drunken (hat) sleep. Tougher material Storey was needed for the job Yet be he had undertaken.
"I sometimes ask myself the question: I de Gaulle and fired 3.000 wears ago, with the name personality and make-up one fears that Monty may
som overtake even them.
formation bis In massed
advance;
thick- paragraphs plated trulsms Threaten a flank- ing invement; and all the time, of a relentless bombardment eliche dnes the softening up.
Zar irby What is the purpose, of the operation?
Maty is no Jonger a poor
The memoirs
nol oppression and corruption,
own athmission. alone are man.
...e Is, of course, limated to have brought him in £100,000. On retiring from munist. But he also is a great
1958 man." full-time Servier life in he was given a tax-free terminal grant of 27,000. His first serler of TV brandeasts said to have He lives With those words Bernard Creed bim 15,000. Montgomery-fre-b-minted Vis fugly. Gifts of Dominions count, Fid-Marshal, and pro- furniture and limber adorn his
And s fessional autor Fompleted upshire home. Chapter 14 of THE PATH TO felt-marhal on half-pay LEADERSHIP, which was pub- still gets 3,300 a year from the lished this mantle (Cutiius, 115.). Army.
It is staggering production. It is not merely that it gives us this ech nielure de Gaulle munching manus in the wilder- ness and snapping "Allons mes at the Children of enfants" Israel,
The truth ....
Right from the stars we are forced to agree that the author is telling no more than the truth when he wrhes: "I doubt if such a book as this has ever been written before."
The opening chapter is en- titted LEADERSHIP - WHAT IS IT 11 begins:--
When we buman beings, br we mes nr women, are galtimaad together in large masses, or even
Delighted
有感扭曲
The only trouble Monty's tributes is that they never know where he
descend next.
On the face of it, he does not have to produce books in order to live.
10
his amazement, was refused. He
ustain a too casity. Com- repeated the offer:
refusal, He then withdrew from
stakes, the matrimonial
his feelings deeply wounded!"
And
this unexpected anecdote in a book on feuder ship Monty adds an even more unexpected personal comment: stayed for eight years and at with
"I can sympathise with him the end was robust enough to you for almost the same thing once write this book about will happened to me in my younger nightmare experience.
days-but few know about it and it is not a subject I enlarge upon,"
What are we to make of that
hia
A Champion
The truth is, of course, that
THE
UNIVERI BEGAN WITH A BANG AND c..
London Exgrams Seftion.
This was the Somme where a generation of men were lost
14,000 MEN DIED
NI
TEN
COVENANT WITH DEATH. By John Harris. Hutchin- son. 27s.
was the
drunkard Nehrit, he is also mystery: Indeed, what are we Gilbert Harding was not simply JULY 1, 1916,
first day of the disas
I have looked up what he said recently about people not
covered that, mentioned in this book. I dis- lighted with Hus he, then, simply developed delighted wih Dr Verwoerd.
believe he is straight and an ich to tertio?
honest. He knows what he is after and is carrying out polley with sincerity call South Africa whiskers.")
That is unlikely too. I lave spoken of his paragraphs ad- vancing in assed formation, but that is rather (og rusy view of the battle. To tell the truth, Munity's prose is not so well drilled as the Elgath Army. It is often in
You hardly feel that Monty enjoys the command.
bereizh,
hia
I'
the cat's
In his present book Monty calls Christ "the greatest of all
to make of the whole myatery of Alonty's authorship?
Fewer ....
to
with
vulgar blistering tongue and an over-trous battle of the Som- Brown sense of self-importance.me. By the winter, when He was no more that than he the battle finally petered was simply the tetchy, gcod-
Tory out, Britain had lost heartett, gravel-voiced Itadical
war to women
champion
What sort of young men these who were sedulously were
ane brief hour trained for their
By
MINUTES
RICHARD LISTER
trave nothing to do but advance
new
The German wire and front though the British handful have line trenches were, on paper, gained the trench. thes and completely climinated by a colos themselves there alone, No one sal barrage. The troops would else gets through. five-
waves of They watch
trcopy advancinz the hundred-thousand men, the in close formation and take them British
tewards them, then wave tier Perhaps we can begin average Englishman that a vast flower of Kitchener's - over.
This is their moment. As the wave they sag and vanish in While he admires Man for his understand if we put ourselves radio public adored.
the ilme admires General in Monty's place today.
Harding was not simple et mies; and the Germans had ht, he Franco for his fight 100,
(''A
At home his is stii a name all. The bear could be nice. The lost about the same number. Helis begin to get the range of the grass-and alt
their trench they climb out and Mason's body dances en the gand man who is fighting the of magie, But, as the war insult was swiftly followed by
A million young men, a whole
waiting at the prepared wire in the cross-thre. What con muliny. Communists.")
the reccica,
Kaping, awed apology, accompanied by generation, lay wasted in France. tapes cmong the thick flowers Fenner do? He blunders alors crowds and the plating angers flowers if the victim was
But that first day was the west, and Arass, grey-wet with dew, the trench leaking for ther fewer
Our casualties at the end of it in No Man's Land. every lady, as often happened.
survivors; he lashes out, with- must be growing
He could be kind and even
wore sixty thousand, and it is
A first wave et troeps has out thinking at a grey-coated He
to wrote "I am now going to skip some lenders known to history." But manth.
different abroad. In sentimental. How
reckoned that feurteen thousand already gone un bullets figure who lurches into him-
I turned to "God, torry!" He writes. This one suspeels that, if Monty had
In 1050 Khrushchev children he had never seen and died in the fist ten minutes. 600 years."
begin io, awish through the long distress perind tw some remarkable paid them one of his special Morcow
overcome with
grass but they must still lie the German who was lying on hils face monnia. figures pass across the military visits, he would have called spent two whole days talking to was
he would when one of them turned out
He had THE BATTALION here waiting. At a notre behind his side Edward Herod an absolutely first-class Monty. In London
him Fenner, the narrator, lootes covered with blood. and I In small groups, we need leader age--Robert Bruce, ship. The question then arises, Henry V. Tarenne, Marl fellow and put Pontius Pilate barely rate two hours with Mfr to be hopelessly ill.
Nelson, into his top category of worki Macmillan. In Delhi, Monty is bursts of wild generosity,
One of his friends is net lised how absurd it was to be Napoleon.
round. In Peking.
set against garlanded.
All this can be moon-
ppologising." is offendership what kin
boorishness, the gleeful
lying dead: of shaped fuces as far as the eye the Certainly, in his account
Fenner, The afternicon finds needed, how is it best exercised Wellington, Robert E. Lee. These leaders.
great commanders are re well-
can rezeh gaze in wonder 61 malice, the slaps meninistered
"Alongside him another man Among these dimeult marges or
house in British known, and so much has been there world leaders, Monty has
with his alone with a dead friend in a public the sharp-nesed
was rolling
The larks are ciny- #roups? In
what feel,
written about them, that there some forecful things to say. He
about lord.
brawls and all the utter dreary leadership?"
of battle, Mr John Harris 1ries hands to his face, and I saw his shell-hole.
were red fingers
with bright ing in the glorious summer sky. What i
next is really little more that enn is particularly sensible his
the folly of wanting to reunite Little wonder that such trips excesses.
Harding it Is well-enough to recapture for us in this long
blood, As he of
veiled and Then, after the longest day in sentence Monty tells us: "Exetally be said."
Germany.
have become a major part
documentary novel.
whimpered with pain, I realised Fenner life, darkness comes at Monty's new life. Little wonder known and Storey does not enn-
He scrambles bark eel it was deprived of the
It was Henny Cuthbert, who'd last. either, that they cause a slir.
power to find happiness with a
the fram that
saw the whole of No that the shock woman. Nor could he I suspect
Man's Land had come to life, ever reporter named Mark Fenner gone down
with wounded men rising like effect of this wandering resign himself to this import takes a morning ride on a train day with me to enlist."
and slowly the celibacy.
silently ghosts. in city that is very much like Brilish eczemarle, with
I drove him to the boille, Shefeld. That morning enlist
ermeling out of the dios and glittering eyes and rasping
hollows....And all round us ment is beginning for a special voice, may have played a part which became a monster that
destroyed him. It explains battalion of 1,500 volunteers in melting the cold war,
why, so often, his boorishness from the city. He is deter- At last the advance begins. In were those pathetic mounds of For it is indeed ramshackle,
this was directed at women. I fu Yet-you may say-ali
that haunts, Lin- Tice, he has some striking Even when writing of one of could be done without Monty the spectre haps not the question. A book testimonials for foreign leaders his most revered heroes, Lincoln, writing a word. Yes, but could seen, some of the most desper
food recipes whom one would not expect to Monty devotes
it be done tax-free? For, you ute pages of this book. more space to
Out of his weaknesses and would be a sound publishing appeal to the average British Lincoln's love Be than to his ace. as part of the payment for
with wit, talent, and naine Mont general.
his memoirs--and also for act-follies, propositon if the
methods of fendership:-
1 he invented gomery appeared on the cover.
"ndviser on military some courage, Ing as No, the problem is not why him in the top category of His next affair was unhappy, matters" to his publishers and to publle image of himself
to national teaders.... Indeed, but should bother
3 newspaper group-Monty has made millions believe in it. He anyone publish this book,
why put hertly, he is a great man." might be the word. He got a large annuity for life. So wrote the part and played it. It was a piece of Action: and, Monty should bother to write
long as he is a literary man, Of de Gaulle; "I put him in began to preociate with
In
pressed in its simplest terms, a leader is one who can get people
to follow him."
We must be
He continues:
clear what is the opposite
"
leadership"-and
quick s # nach w get the answer: "It is *inisteatershin, for want of better werd,"
A
any
You may wonder how publisher could ismte such prise
to the public. But that is per-
of British Army
St.
but
Relentless
You
ton
hdur
almost Monty's sigh of relief as he dismisses abx centuries Ilko that. For his chaplers may be hard to read: but they must be hard labour itself to write. So why should Monty krep on writing? Is it becaie he has a message"
or Tile he writes!
ווגן זיי
Yet such views are surely best kept for Meaty's speeches. They can hardly justify the preten- tious and ramshackle frameworks of this book on leadership,
no1
Love life
traple humorous
a lady,
1914 It begins in summer when
young ntwrpoper
תל?
about
LIKE CORN
front of him Fenner is amazed men tour foot high in places mined to be one of them.
This is to be a highly selective to find the men of the first they were-and still more, thick the as flies cly-ohper, with the thick on Lying force of exceptional wave
thetle looicing Home-made volunteer
flogs
their that proclaimed young men, clerks, university ground:-
"I found it hard to belleve enthusiasm and their faith and graduates, professional people.
In the chars that prevalled at there could be so many of them, thei: exaliation, still clasped in the time, nothing was ready for almost like corn cut down by a dead hands." and
them, no quarters, no equipament, scythe, huddled all ways, some of them in shell holes with their no uniforms even.
feel sticking cut, looking like Bch in a basket.
mare real than the the top category of national Mary Owens, no longer young, he need pay no tax on any part in a way. Jenders."
for whom her married sister of that income which he spend less estimable "truth" of which
When op Of Nebra: "By the time I wanted a husband.
on travel for iterary purposes. the public is given occasional jell New Delhi, I had put him proveled by the sister. Lincoln
Since he was an Infant Monty eurprising glimpses.
But it is the truth and not For Monty has not gone coyly in the category et greal mca." agreed to marry Mary-lough has ilked to keep un the move,
and now evidently he finis to the fiction that is the theme of He is deeply impressed by ingly regarding it as a joke. into authorship. Since he retired
days parsed "As the
his delight that, provided he this book. from his Nato command he has Khrushchev alt even more im-
and the keeps turning out articles produced more words for print pressed by Mao Tse-tung, "He realized he did not love
for has done something
his lady but he reckoned it Ws books, it will cost him less to George than Graham Greene,
formal keep moving than to stay stMalcolm Thomson Among military leaders, only country without a doubt, fight his duty to make a Caesar and Moses himself have ing foreign aggression and inter- proposal, and did sand, to
Cummings
1C
"MACLEOD
-London Express Service).
MENI Consomme of Sir Roy Welensky
BRAISED WELENSKY
à la CONSTITUTION
Souffle of
Sir Roy
Welensky Rarebit On Toast
“Sorry the banquet's late, Big Chief--the joint's proving a bit tough!"
-London Express Berutes),
INTO SHAPE
Not an inch had been gained.
WET FINGERS
I
Trom all the young men who find jostled outside the own "Most of them were stin, but hell to enlist, a tiny shattered few of them moved awkward- bond inarehes back with Fenner ly, with the clumsy, herrifying beyond the lines: They had nothing to carry slowness of crushed beetles, try- them over the first few dis- ing to get up or turn over.
The advance
They go03 on. organised months, but their high spirits and their enthusiasm. push on impatiently through
"As we left the trenches men returning And their indomitable company shery wounded
a loud walling sound | sergeant major, Bold.
from the first assault. Then noticed
like huge wet Angers being Slowly through one of the the machine guns begin:
enormicus worst English winters, the "....There was a scund ke dragged nercas an
me glass pane. It rose and battalion was licked into shape, cleaping steam all round and was eventually ready to be and little spurts of dirt began interminable, unbearable, sent overseas. But not, as they to leap from the ground. I saw as we turned on angle of the saw where it came hoped, to france.
men stagger nad roll forward trench 1 First to Egypt for a spell, and still holding their rifles, sinking from. All along a muddy sunken there their enthusiasm began to slowly to their kaces and rag- roadway they lay, hundreds of cbb. For this collection of on the ging forward until their heads wounded, brown blanket shapes, com shouting, some monseg, whole intelligent men is still touched the ground." animated by the naive bellef An officer, berserk, orders the some singing in delirium." that they are a superior force, dead men to get up and move
foil and
With that walling stiit sound-
and that if they were flung Into forward but Fenner knocks the Ing in our cats we teach tho
end ef Covenant With Death.. the battle in France, they would revolver from his hand.
After the Second World War turn the sentes.
At the German wire all is
and Kitchener, which kept them Ing. going.
Mr Harris is not porfectly confusion. Men are running up it was the In Memoriam mollers Buccessfu)
capturing the and down trying to find a nail. Ault the Iccal papers physical details
The of the times, in the wire. Fenner's friend, every July 1 which inspired but bo does get very well the the handsome Mason, ish, Harris to write his novel.
of one ectual the experience is caught on spirit of the men, the curious trips, and
Sheffield mrvivor, da telated to blend of patriotism, of belief in barbe
"No! 1 heard blm sæream- him, he made into Fenner's story. themselves and their country
"No! No! No!' Then his-everi down to the detail of the cries were deed in half by a efficer threatening the kriceling Then they get their chance, spurt of bullets and his head dead man.
And tha phrases? Tirab They are moved to France. fell bar and his boxty tagged
rofetered to "Huge wet finger They are rigorously retrained inside his clothes,"
Fimily, in the chemy trench on gibs may seem ob authors for the Great Push, but oven to
tancy. Blit those them the training secma old- ilɛvil, Fenner and a few others grotesquie
and themselves struggling in yort wards, Harris leils Me, data To mounting tensibis an, the gobbing, wearing mad with be found, in an eyewitness mate report in a euginental history. great day approaches is well Gerthand who sto event
"NO, fantaqy could ba mor Bulls up,And tien follows the frightened than they are. 100% Terrie shumdies of the Bit is 19 hét until how that terrible that in itkih, about 'batile.
the real hovor begins. her, the Bombe..
| fashioned and irrelevant.
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