1941-05-15 — Page 4

CHILDREN'S SUN SUITS

WE HAVE A

VARIED SELECTION

FROM WHICH TO

CHOOSE,

Price from $2.95

GIRLS'

DRESSES

Pretty frocks to please a

young maid's taste.

$7.95

TENNIS SOCKS

Pure lisle, in all colours.

Turquoise, Coral, Mauve, Green.. Maroon, etc.

Price: $1.10 and $1.50 per pair

WHITEAWAY, LAIDLAW & Co., Ltd.

All

Thursday,

HONGKONG TELEGRAPH

May 15, 1941.

SETOSOW

LARGE MUSCLES are GREAT on stevedores or carabau drivers.

BUT.

They're no longer necessary when waxing your automobile - - Thanks to WHIZ LONDON COACH WAX. Don't spend HOURS and ENERGY. Use WHIZ LONDON COACH WAX and attain that LONG-LASTING --WATERPROOF - - ŞUNPROOF

HARD

DRY

WAX -FINISH FOR YOUR CAR,

Your dealer or garage-man recom- mends it,

WA

Sold Here HONGKONG

DEATH

HOTEL GARAGE Stubbs Rd.

BICKERSTAFF.-On May 14, 1941, at his residence No. 182 Prince Edward Road, James

Dowie Blckerstaff, aged 30. Funeral will pass the Monument at 5.30 p.m, to-day.

The

Hongkong Telegraph.

Thursday, May 15, 1941. Wyndham St., Hongkong Telephone: 20015

THE prefix "Special to the Telegraph" Ised by the ongkong Telegraph' to Indicate news which is strictly copyright under the provisions of the Telecommunt- cations Ordinance, 1916. Such news as hear the Indication "Up" in received in Hongkong on the date of publication by the United Press Associatione, who ri- serve all rights and forbid republications.

BITTER WINTER

Full

story of the

Amazing

February Weather in England

IT

TT is now possible to reveal that the worst snowstorm since 1917 swept the north of England in the middle of February.

went

Many towns and villages in Cumberland, Westmorland, Northumberland, and Yorkshire were isolated for days; råil and bus services were interrupted; supplies ran short; district nurses were isolated with their patients: buses through snow, cuttings in ten- foot drifts with the walls topping their roofs; some vehicles were buried for nearly a week, and at one time a large number of lorries and cars were held up in the north by the blocking of ʼn famous pass. While this was happening in the north, most of the south was having normal weather.

Personal service highlights in this wide- spread, storm were the way district nurses car- ried on in face of great difficulties and girls drove heavy Army lorries over hills, where some of them had to stay stormbound for the night..

I reached the approaches to the pass on the night before the thaw cleared the road sufficient- ly for alternate one-way traffle to be operated. Snow and traffic blocks made it impossible to go further.

ப

Snowstorm the

worst since

1917

Food dropped

by airplane

Women lorry-

drivers marooned

the nurse to get help tramped some- times almost hip-deep in snow to the nearest farmhouse to summon a form cart pa ambulance to take the womun to hospital. She got safely through, but on the return was charged by a small herd of cattle which had not fed for days. She lay snow. The animals sniffed her, then moved away. She scrambled over a fence and buck to her patient. The farm cart got through Inter and the woman was Inken to hospital, where the child was kafely born.

One or two nurses can scarcely

One la in hospital as the result of her ordeals.

walk after mild attacks of frost bite.

Packhorses to

·

the rescue

In some cut-off areas packhorses had to be brought out to get essen- Hal supplies through. Many villages were without letters, newspapers, soul, and fresh food supplies for days. At Hallwhistle, Northumberland, where farmers holding their firat market of

of the year were ablo to bring scarcely anything to sell, there

shortage of beer, and Tomers whe wanted whisky generally cut of miniature bottles, there being no other supplies.

Won

nol

cus-

Here, when I wanted to telephone

tele

At every hillside bay there depots, and their convoys are Radnorshire village of Lloiney, to Alston (1,000-foot high market were jams of trafic. Drivers constantly on the road, no mat- one of the blackest spots in the town) I was told at the post office were crowded in wayside cafes ter what the weather.

country, was covered for forty that if I wrote my message na a or sleeping in outhouses. Police and A.A. stouts in phone touch They are paid three pounds n one consecutive days, Sixteen- gram they would send it by train, Alaton by road" my driver wisely with control points regulated week plus hotel expenses. They foot snowdrifts on the Welsh Allowed to get through to wear no uniforms and drive border made roads impassable turned back at a treacherous stretch mostly in corduroy. trousers, for three weeks. During this of fell ront where icicles hung more

23 yard long and snowdrifts were deeper. They told me that at the overalls, and peaked caps with time isolated hamlets received than worst of the jam a hundred or ear-pieces. At the hotels, food by airplane.

traffic.

frozen

Dirty days for shepherds

ten feet and a few to, fifteen. They have a regimental pride frost-a record not reached be dug out and

so vehicles were held up in one where they spend the night and Temperature fell to below zero town, every cul-de-sac, yard, monopolise the baths for hours, in many districts. Shropshire and some streets being tem- they change into tailored skirts, had twenty-eight degrees of porary car parks. On the silken hose, and reveal polished frost, and south-east London Farmers argued whether the storm other side there were numbers nails and permed hair that be twenty-two degrees. In some was the worst since 1917 or 1898. more, and others were stuck at the blizzard adventures in the of the western counties there and told stories of thousands of hill various points between, where hills.

were 192 hours of continuous sheep buried under snow having to into safer many drifts went to eight or

or hand-fed where they since 1920, when more than 200 round

were. To get turnips to feed them hours was recorded.

farmers had to dig through feet of snow. Other farmers have nearly In the fell countryside between used up their available supplies of Carlisle and Newcastle, where wide strictly rationed feeding stuffs, and

in

getting

A hearse with coffin going to through. Preston for burial was snowed

their

convoys

brought into

That morning of the thuw up for five days; a bus com- pletely buried; a heavy load of was an unforgettable spectacle. areas were completely cut off, wo- ploughing programmes are six weeks biscuits for export lay on its The snow-bound hillside (part men also performed grand work. in arrears. either wholly or in part without previous side in a drift; there were lor- cleared by digging and thaw) The district nurses, I was told at the

ries with fish and meat; heavy came suddenly to life, and a Cumberland County Council offices, been out, sometimes on horseback, wagons, some tarpaulined, some queue of lorries came through get through to evefy case to which searching for sheep, either with long

arrangement.

EXPLOITERS BEATEN THE lesson that determined and sincere effort, backed by honest motives can always, in

the long run, overcomc U131- scrupulous, dealings has again been taught by the immediate results of the establishment in Hongkong of "fair-price" rice

the

north. They took they were called. hours to negotiate the precari- ous track, and until they had passed no traffic was allowed to go through from the south.

exposed to the weather-loads from of granite, concrete blocks, a petrol tank 25ft. long. Woman at the wheel

A convoy of twenty lorries, driven by girls, had just come through. Some of the vehicles were 30cwt., some 5-tonners.

..

How the Nurses got through

Every day hili shepherds have

drifts

poles with which they probe the or with dogs that can scent through several feet of snow.

and were also in use, wulked ncross five-barred gates, high walls and hedges, scarce- ly knowing they were

Many bus services to from

When

roads were cleared by cul-

Car-

Some had to dig their

way to ly patients' homes; one was carried over A

story of

deep drifts by then relatives of a sick

of the woman; some who

had already cold mutton reached their patients' homes were tings through drifts up to ten feet deep the snow walls caved in dur- storm-stayed there for days, and Drivers brought through ad- doctors on horseback had to attend ing a short thaw and closed them

ngain.

ain. Then came another freeze- They came over the pass one ditional stories of the hold-up, to other normally nursing cases. up and many cars were ditched.

For At Hollbankgate, twelve miles

a time train services, too, night when days of digging had The road, it appeared, had been

also Interrupted. The cleared a temporary one-way cleared carlier, but one of the from Carlisle, the only way the nurse were for traffic, but near the summit first vehicles to go ahead was could reach a sick household was by liste-Newcastle service got through when it could. Up there they still another heavy fall of snow came a huge three-decker sheep lorry travelling on a colliery locomotive. chuckle about the train that got down. Eighteen of the twenty with fifty or sixty live sheep. At one maternity case in a fell through to the minute on a Friday. Radio public-minded people brought got through. The driver of the It crashed and overturned on side house, with snow nearly up to But it was. Thursday's train.-H. B.

nineteenth, helping to dig out the treacherous surface. Some-the-roof-complications developed and in the "Sunday Express," the one in front, did not no- sheep were killed, some injured. tice that her own was snowing up, and soon it was hopelessly stuck.

World shops, which, within 48 hours smashed the Colony's rice pro- fiteering market. The foresight and courage of a number of

THE NEW

MARCONIPHONE

PRICE $345

S. Moutrie

YORK BUILDING

Co., Ltd. order to grasp that little extra towels and newspapers to keep along the route added to the

CHATER ROAD

THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE BELLOWS

The R. A. F. has done its stuff AGAIN

SO BLOW TO IT

April Score 385

profit at the expanse of the pur- chasers, such as watering the rice to make it heavy, or adul- terating it by mixing the grades, then charging Grade A prices.

this about. Before the in auguration of the "fair price"

The live ones had to be selling centres, many of the rice

turned loose in the fells while dealers openly snapped their

the carrier and chassis were The twentieth was in worse worked to the side of the road. fingers at Government legisla- tion which endeavoured to con- plight. Caught in one of the Another carrier following be- worst spots on the fells, it was hind also had an accident, and trol prices; and as if the flaunt-

and mutton were law ing of the

were not snowed up. The girl driver more sheep sufficient, numbers of deaters spent the night in her cab, stuf- spilled over the countryside. resorted to nefarious tricks in fing all, crevices with blouses, Stranded driverless lorries out slashing snow and a gale difficulties of clearing a work- that threatened to overturn the able track. At the height of torry. A woman of sixty had the hold-up days earlier drivers to spend the night with her. were told on a Friday night that The driver had no sleep, for she nothing could get through, so had to get out to start the many of them packed up and This sort of sharp practice engine every hour to prevent trekked to the nearest railway was outright dishonesty and

freezing. It took them twenty stations and went home. Ac- fraud which could only be suc-hours to cover twenty miles, tually a temporary road was cessfully countered. and ren-

and during that time they had cleared, when most of the wait- dered unprofitable by the up-

по ing lorries had drivers. no food. pearance of competitors willing

Later snowfalls increased the to sell pure, fair weight rice at the legal prices. Happily such public spirited and disinterested people were to be found in the Social Work Committee which formed itself for this express tusk. As a result, the situation in the rice market has taken a violent change for the better. Adulteration of rice is still be ing carried out by some tallers, but so impressive was their loss of business for two days that in sheer desperation they brought their prices below. the official rate per picul by one' dollar. This was the principal aim of the "fair price" centres. purpose of competing with the merchants on a profit-making basis, nor of forcing the dealers

enthusiastic out of business unless they re-

response from fused to listen to reason. The those who were entitled to this Social Work Committee were protection. It is to be hoped determined to make the licensed that those licensed rice dealers retailers adhere to the official who fondly imagined they could Ministry of Transport of- prices, and to prevent them continuo their methods of ex- ficials have Investigated the from exploiting any further the ploitation without any fear of hold-up, and it is probable that thousands of poor people who consequences, have learnt more up-to-date snow-clearing rely on rice for their susten-salutary lesson. From now on, apparatus will be brought into they may rest assured that an operation in future on this dif- This was a worthy aim, which organisation exists which will ficult but vital road artery. evoked not only the sympathynot hesitate to light them, and at all fair-minded people, but, successfully so, if there are fur- happily, enjoyed a prompt and ther-signs-of-malpractice

Some of the girl drivers got through the partially cleared snow blocks and the delay.

On the north side of the pass track after men drivers had given up the task and had soldiers were called out to an tramped through the snow to sist workers engaged on clear. the nearest shelter.

ing the road, but there are com-

re-

CLOSING DATE FOR APRIL · Tuesday, May 20 They were not set up for the

Read your Fellowship Booklet carefully for detailed Instructions regarding "blow-ins" and "windfalls", then deposit your April "blow-in" in a closed envelope with your Flowship number). In addition to official collectors for firms there are collection Boxes at:--

II.K. & Shanghai Bank, Kowloon. Peninsula Hotel, Kowloon, Far East Oxygen & Acetylene Co.

Lu, Kowloon,

European Y. M. C, A., Kowloon, Caravan, Kowloon,

Helens May. Institute, If.K. II.K. & Shanghai Bank, II.K.

II.K. Jockey Club, II.K. · ́ Lane Crawford Ltd), ILK.

དྷྭ

Star Ferry Wharf, Kowloon.

Chias Light & Power Co., Ltd..

IIung-hom

Chian Light & Power Co., Ltd.

Argylo Street

ILK. Star Ferry Wharf,

ILK. Hotel, XXI.

FLIC. Ctab..

Gloucester Hotel, H.K,

H.R. & Whampoa Dock Recreation

Club,

ance.

One girl driver towed a heavy plaints that too few men were county council clearing the lorry for several miles until she turned out on the work by the reached a stretch of surface outh side. Lorry drivers say where she had to give up. they volunteered to help on a

payment basis, but a week and

expenses

fused.

were re-

Some took part in the work voluntarily, and hundreds of These girl drivers, are civili- them tolerated their troubles ans from comfortable homes and moro easily for the reason that accustomed to driving their own they were getting overtime for cars. They drive lorries from Saturdays and Sundays while the assembly factories to Army their lorries were stuck in the

Bilow.

Better apparatus discussed

Wales had its heaviest snow for saventy-five years. The

CHRISTOPHER

WREN

THE THWARTED ARCHITECT Hiilor. In Jila youth, tried to be an architect, but failed.