1961-06-21 — Page 6

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DUNKIRK

THE CHINA MAIL, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 21, 1961.

How to become the new

Were you afraid? said the girl

TO A whole generation, Dunkirk has become just a name for old newsreel shots of grey benches overhung with smoke; a story not fully understood. Jethro Crabb was one of the 350,000 brought home from that beach.

Now he is a Salisbury, business man; his daughter Gillian, then a baby he had never seen, is 21. And when he returned to France for the 21st anniversary of Dunkirk, Gillian went with him to find out for herself.

how much came tentatively to Dunkirk, he wondering

it had THEY

changed since 1940; she only having heard how it was, and never having thought a lot about it anyway-wondering if she had got it right in her imagination.

They walked slowly, arm in arm, on to the beaches-sand and pebbles stained with oil from passing ships and streaked with chemicals swilled out by the town's factories.

tu

by MICHAEL PARKINSON

"It's not very nice, is 10" whe suht. He shook his head, nol really having heard her. was trying to fal the spot where he arrived, 21 years ago: one man in a smoshed-up army being herded

sea by the had quickened his pace because the

he recognised something. Germans.

The exact place was difcuft to locate, biseanse there are roads, houses, shops and a casina now, where unce there were unly sand dunes and a few wooden shacks, There was nu- where to bile in his days.

"It has changed so much, my dear," was vil he sold as he walked along, scanning the town side of the beaches.

She looked around at the small, crisp waves from a calm sea, the smooth, empty tach, the seagulls; and after a white she said:--

"Was it boring. Daddy?" He smiled o little and said: "No, not really."

He stopped in front of a square of tangled metni set in a co- erete block in the sand.

"What is it, Daddy?" "I remember this, all right," he said. ''''

the Is where

Bred all ack-ack gun wens. It day long It was the only gun we had down on the beaches."

"Didn't you have riftes?" He smiled again.

"Yes, my dear. We had rifles and the Germans had planes."

"Were you frightened?" And he answered;-

"Not much. I was before, but when

I was just I got here worried about getting home to ace you and your mother."

When his child was born, his no- section of the 4th Army Field Workshops was billeted at a place called Le Mudeleine, near Lille.

And he stopped a moment, searching the sea and sunds. remembering the nolar, the smoke, the bombs and bullets, the blood, the weariness, the fear, the Jokes, the turmott and

He got a letter from his wife, mess. Remembering Dunkirk.

The girl was little way In Salisbury, saying behind her father now w they girl and was he still happy

He about the walked along the beaches.

name Gillion? Ac-

cording to the papers, she sald, nothing much seemed to br huppening in France, so perhaps he would be able to get home and see them.

This was the phoney war, and her occupied his time taking engines to pieces and lorry pulling them together again. Nothing important. Just prae- tier, really.

So he asked if he could have some leave, explaining about Ce baby. And the adjutant said there was no leave for anybody, not even compassionate.

He was pretty browned off about that A low days later, they asked him if he would play his banjo in the concert that right. He was still browned off. But he joined in all the same.

Private Chainberlain played bis mouth organ and Sergeant Morton

song "Lonesome" in a light

volce. Somebody tenor else did some card tricks. Not

a bad concert.

was a

011

Why a friend of ours feels a bit betrayed..

By Robert Gilmore

Auckland.

WHEN Jack Ferguson was seven, he used to

At the end. The colonel went

the platform and made speech about keeping their chins up and all that.

tise

rifle iti anger.

In this wood Private Crabis learned to use # Now, on his return, he studies a map of the place with his daughter Gillian, who was born just before the big retreat began enuteln't their headlights. pretty well trapped in this wood, The roads were full of craters, if the Germans wanted to come and get them. About 100 men. The worst part was not know-

100 rifles, 2,500 rounds ut For the first time he felt, not tog what was happening They

smmuition, one Brên gün, and hnd just been fold to have exactly frightened, but uneasy,

one anti-tank gun. All this he had told the girl Ypres and head towards Lille

The spotter plane had got Tant the day, when they earlier int

marked and them

soon they were driving to Ypres.

were being bombed and shelled.

from the Flest World War. They had wooden wheels.

the

was inland, they all knew that. Was this advance or retreat?

But the morning was touched

They weren't for from Lille with springtime, and there were

when they were halted. The flowers and windmills to be seen

whisper went round that they In the passing countryside.

Along the roads she noticed were heading for the enemy)

green signposts pointing Eul suun after that they were tiny

WAY to the British wor told turn away fron: Lille and

When the ear was head west, toward the coast, cemeteries. stopped she could smell, on a So now they knew. They were soft wind from the Reds

on the razı, of

They drove fast, Flanders, the mingled perfume using up what was left of the of dozens of different flowers night. Just before dawn they blooming on the graves.

drove into a wood near Buissart, But even this did not mean

which is 18 miles from Dunkirk, When it was light ennuigh to much.

see, he fished out of his packet The letter telling him about his haby.

These Itic crosses for the dead belonged to an age which seemned remote from her.

♫

of

The next morning they were issued with 25 rounds of live ammunition each and in the afternoon-it was May 30-the unit was moved in a mad rush out of Le Medeleine and across the Belgian border to Ypres. That's where be found why he didn't get leave.

A spotter plante ironed over low and they all knew what Dat meant.

And in Ypres itself, where, with the refugees, her father first became aware of war, there Was a gay fair in the market They were ordured to dig in the eastern fringe of the square. There was the sound at

cathedral belis

and organ wood.

He folded the letter up and music in the air.

There was nothing sinister in tucked it back in the flap of his

pay-book. "What Ypres if you were 21.

next?" sald the girl.

"Then came the worst three days of my life," sald her fattter.

Peaceful

happened

So it was that he came agoln to that small patch of trees near the Bat enuntryside

She went with her father to Duissart ኣይነት

the place where he had mended of Normandy. the guns. The place where two

He walked with his arm round of his comrades, the Arst of his daughter's shoulders into the many, were killed.

As they drove into the town the roads were choked with people leaving it. They carried their possessions on bicycles, in wheelbarrows, handlearts, old lorries, hay wagons, anything.

By disk, Ypres was being bombed, and by dawn It was At noon they drove aWBY being shelled. The Germans from Ypres, under the Mealn were that close.

Uneasy

Now he had finished with lorry engines and was mending guns

be up before dawn helping his father with pulled back from the front line. the milking by lantern-light.

Once he asked: "Where does

the cream go?" and his father

"Alter the war I was active replied: "To the Old Country, in dairy farmers organisations.

fellers "The young farmers,

lad."

That was all at 58 years ago with no memory, started to ask but Jack Ferguson remembered why we didn't act like business

There cnual and streets,

were swans

rubble no

on the in the

Gate, which is covered in the names of 50,000 dead, and hended on the road to Lille,

This was the rond he had taken 21 years ago—at midnight In an Army lorry.

"It wasn't said.

very nice." he

The German planes kept up Among then there were small an all-out attack with machine pieces of artillery which dated guns and bombs. SO they

New York. TAS it Jack or was it Like the

W Jackie?

it today as we talked while we mich and get the world price for jaunty jingle of the new. squelched aerosp his 120 aeres our butter and cheese.

of clover and rye grass, salaci

green here in New

even in mid-winter.

"None of

even considered est popular

song this

Zealand doing that. We mid: 'We can't phrase sounds across take the last penny from our the country. Many of the

The only time I've met own folk after all they've been hardest-headed newsinen people from the Old Country in through.

first

Lime 3n. my life, when she bought butter from Europe-at

ony nurabers was when I was a But in the inid-fifties folt chewing over this might sergeant in Palestine In the critical of Britain for the Arst war, and the Auries had a Somerset battery of the Royal Artillery attached to thein.

"Those gunners were every thing I had hoped Englishmen

were."

decide it was Jack.

Face to fate will the wiles of prices lower than the price for veteran Premier Nikita Khrush- which people in the countries it came from could buy it.

chev, survivor of

dozen purges, an exhausting struggle

"I can see the case for trying for power after Stalin's death,

But now: "I can't understand to forep down Britain's cont of the youngest elected President the Old Country," sald Jack living. But I would like people in Ferguson. He

friends

farmer

£200,000

chilty and his

are

Amerion's

history could!

courage

and stamian in combat war and hi

In Britain to know what their after only his losing policies mean to us

a week now because

Britain is buying dumped butter

from the Continent.

OUR TASKS

"Two years ago it cost us offe cool nerve as a Congressman and a half tons of butter to buy and Senator in the Presidential

wood with the bare trees and soggy ground. She the mossy,

little bremze the shivered a wind was chill now and asked: "How long were you here?" "About 24 hours,”

"I bet you were cold," she said.

Perhaps he was. Come to think about it he aust have been because he had lost his great- coat in all the rush and was wearing only his battle-dregs, But cold was the last thing he was worried about. The same went for fodd.

He knew, and all the rest of the men knew, that they were

Harried

It suddenly occurred to him that they were being harried and driven from one place to he still had not another, yet seen his first German soldier.

Some were evidently expected soon though, because they were ordered to load their rifles-for the first time since they arrived in France.

"Did you think about using your riflet Shooting someone, 1 menn. Were you ready to?" the girl asked.

"Of course," he said.

In fact, the whole thing had caught up with him so fast that he didn't have time to dwell on final and the niceties absolute change from civilian to Bghting soldier.

about fighting. He had respon- sibilities. A home, a wife, a family now.

He had a good strady job foo. He was a Alter with a bug It didn't pay much, company. but he earned extra playing his banjo in a local dance band.

Now, instead of a banjo he rifte, Number was holding which Y42, forgotten.

he haa never

The wait

Occasionally groups of re- fugees passed them on the edge of the wood. He saw one little boy get his legs blown off by a

bomb.

"How dreadful. Just a child." said his daughter.

And that was expctly what he had thought as he lay there, with the shells and bombs crash- ing all around, on a spring day- with

whiff of fresh grass in the air, waiting to fire his rifle at a German soldier,

Al midnight, never having fired a shot, they were ordered to move on. of his

The barrage had lifted and was over their heads, pounding the coastline,

The mat next to him said:- "Just like playin' Bleedin' cow-boys and Indians."

And he smiled, a tight smile with no humour in Lt. his stomach tight with fear.

This is ridiculous, he thought, Here am I, flat on my belly on the edge of sume French wood, with an old Enfeld ride, 25 bullets and not much idea what to do with them.

They climbed aboard their two remaining trucks and drove out of the wood.

He cut a hole in the canvas hood to breathe the cool night alr and as the lorry lurched and swayed in and out of the bomb and shell eraters in the rond he could see, through the hole, į a glare in the distance.

"Where do you think that is?" he asked the man beside him.

"What did you think about, Duddy?" his daughter sald.

" not sure. It might be "You and your mother," he Dunkirk." sald.

It was the first time he had And

He heard of the place. other things too.

And they never wanted to go to war. He was too old at 38 to be mucking towards it.

TOMORROW:

were

heading

The problems of survival

AMERICAN NEWSLETTER

IT WAS

JACKIE'S

CORONATION WEEK

FROM

tive woman.

JEAN CAMPBELL

Jacqueline Kennedy, he was doing more than taking a bow as a proud Husband. He was, in effect, declaring a victory for

-(London Express Servica}.

whete women are more power- ful than in any other, now had a woman whose very presence might affect the history of the world.

Enter Anthea

a

The camera cileks and con- quers. Let us never forget that Mrs

John Kennedy was camera-girl and Mr Antony Armstrong-Jones a camera-boy. Now I have news of yet an- other dark-room bombshell. She

1 beautiful, blonde and British, and here. Her name Anthea Sleveking and she comes from the Constable country.

Anthea is 27 years old and she has just sailed Into New York aboard the Queen Mary.

Although

she plans to stay date, projects, that every

only three months, fo "When I saw those terrifying ambitious changes of dialogue, down the his political acumen.

clumps of towers that make up a Morris 1.000. Now, with sweepstakes he had won,

politician .must develop

his hour of warning and counter- Two years before, at the be- Wall Street I thought I should butter prlees depressed by Moreover he was meeting the ability to make snap but lasting warning, two leaders of two ginning of the long rigour of his never be able to cacape again foreign dumping in Britain, itPremier of the Soviet Unton at judgments upon thousands and enormously powerful nations campaign for the Democratic from the intense magic of this costs us three tons of butter, ter a series of small but initial thousands of people.

might have to defend them nomination, he had faced the city," Jack Ferguơm in a man deep- | defeats with Cuba and Laos in It is more than a little liko a selves upon the inner signific- Berce, critical fire of many a Having come here for a week "We dairy farmers Arc

ly loyal to that "Old Country" the foreground,

between Democrot. That Jackle would and having stayed here for different from sheep farmers, he first learned about as he But Americare depend much problem faced by a very attrac once with the touch

two hands, more than on the not and Sickle could not do. had five years, I underständ An- They sell wool to the world, worked beside his father in the on personal meetings. Not for

carefully guarded atalements been the specel of the power thes's predilections. But for us dairymen the world lantern-lit darkness alcet a them the carefully elaborated

they offered each other.

fut siége

dunn within his own

Abilies bollaves list a photo- Hust always been the

"Khrushchev is as hard as party.

grapher shiould changé coun- Gountry," he said.

nails," Kennedy is reported fo Juckle was too pretty, too tries from time to time in order this logic, Jack have sold to our Prime Minister. European, too social, too arty, to see things and propte. In a Kennedy shook hands twice Let us hope this be a metaphor tot horsy and much too fighty now and skarper peripovilvo. a with Khrushchev, ent for prote- and not appreciation.

ever to comparO favourably She is impressRⱭ by the col and then for a second time

with Dick Nikon's smiling wife, brightness in light of this city when he was given a relaxed

Pat.

mid by the taub elécirte quality glimpse of an opponent who had

Even after the election many of its atmosphere. "People dropped his guard.

sul pasted that Jack had won move about as though they were As for the lovely Jackie, it in aplie of Jackle. Only recent treading on time-bombs," the the Promier," auld was the week of hor Coro y did she come into the first explained. When the Second World War right ling by those of us who and Truman aro confirmed Kennedy, with sly cordiality, intion.

full assumption of list power Her fashion advice to would- came the Government and put have stood by them in bad practitioners of this art.

"It's all right to shake hands When President Kennedy was and her talent, and In Anterica be English emigrate is simple: job was to produen everything times, and have never tied to

We must realise that there are ngat if it's all right with him." speaking to nowamen in Paris a subtle shudder of attention a wardrobe of dark blue sivo Hrluigi orkest for, and do it squeeze them over money," so many people in America, so A tootola history, bud and Introduced. Nihselt an- the anong she men greeted this clatiiew?

of tense ex- man who camo along with achievemont-America, the land at rock-baitor post.

-(London Express Service),

"By the time my wife and I

Bad broken those rough

adres

By home and hand and

whre

putting cows on them,

the

tractor was just coming in.

"Look at my hands even

nit

mo

these years afterwards," he saidj showing Anders,

lifetime ago.

project of many minds malting He starts to say: "My dimmany detailed plans.

Firm to another principle: appointment with Britain..."

and then breaks off to reassure trust in the feel of on enemy me: "I hesitate to use so strong handshake, the stylo of

a word as disappointment about movements, the speed and hest prople to whom my feelings are tation of his speech. to deep.

SHOOK TWICE

Trile

to

HER VICTORY It is a feminine" ability, but

"My diappointment Is to many of the most masculine 線 calloused pared by a hunch that in

politicians. Including the American

Nixon, long run the British will do the Kennedy,

Elsenhower

"Toll

I'many decisions, movements and through the heat

(London Express' Gervice),

kind of snob...

THE morning after their second first night, Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall were be ing objective with their notices in the daily papers.

"They've all been pretty good, haven't they?" said Kelih Wa- terhouse. "Pretty good," salt Willis Hall, and they both curé- fully didn't smile.

This is the second time in a year that the highly successful writing partnership of Water- house and Hall has claimed success in the West End theatre, "Billy Llur" is still rätzing, after 10 months, at the Chm- bridge. "Celebration," the new play, looka Bio being was even greater success. Both plays have already been sold for liming- at £20,000 each.

Kelt Waterhouse, aged 32, the son of a costermonger, has been a successful novelist and journalist on his own.

Wills Holl, also aged 32, the of a fitter, has had his. solllory success 100, as a play- wright. Together, it seems, these two young men from Leeds have

doubled simply

up their ap-

Bun

plause.

About

asitle

four times they kid their

newspapers though rave notices don't really need to be read more than once.

CLASSLESS

"Someone here," said Willis Hall, "has called us The Nancy

Mitford of the lower midullo classes'."

They smiled their half hidden smiles and considered the come ment. "I don't like that," said Keith Waterhouse. "No," said Mr Hall, "that isn't it at all."

"In fact," said Keith Water- house, "the thing to be now la classicos."

"That," sai Willls Hall, "is the big snobbery now."

Swayed, perhaps, by the critic who made the Nancy Milford remark, Keith Waterhouse and

Willis Hall decided that this was a good time to make the rules for classles$135..

THE RULES

Like all good snobberies, the rules are very definite. To be classiers you MAKE SURE your working- class origins are known. Onco they are, you no longer bogat about thoin.

NEVER vote, NEVER

your own.

drop names, except

BE FRIENDS

even an carl.

with anyone.

SPEAK with an accent, pro viding your children don't.

MONEY IS not important. When asked

you say exactly how much you earn.

CHILDREN go elther to a Slate school or some eccentric place of education. schools are passe.

Publis

YOU LIKE all the worst things on the felly. And, you Ike Maverick better than Arri- chair Theatre.

YOU LIKE pop music. TOU GENERALISE a lot. YOU WEAR good clothes badly and bad clothes well.

YOU DON'T have servants, you employ foreign girls.

IN the privacy of your own home you are against the H- bomb and capital punishment,

OUTSIDE. you joke about them. Your sense of humour is in the worst possible taste.

WHEN you go to a good res faurant for lunch, you tell peb- ple you're off to the Boozer..

YOU FIT in anywhere, and are never embarrassed by class. YOU ARE embarrassed by most other things.

A

SALLY VINCENT

(London Express Service)};

TALKING

POINTS

nickstamo is the Heaviest stone that the De vil can throw at a man.

~WILLIAM HAZLITT.

To love is to believe,

to hope, to know,

"Tis an essay,

EDMUND WALLEA.

a taste of Heaven below!