The Brussels Post, 1962-09-27, Page 2Gwendoline P. Clarke
For more than a decade readers of this, and many other
Canadian weeklies, have followed with interest the happen-
ings described in the column entitled "Chronicles of Ginger
Farm".
There was little of the sensational or headline-making
in those happenings. Week after week, season after season
and year after year the column chronicled the life of the
Clarke family living — and working — on a Southern On-
tario farm. Yet the charm, and above all the sincerity of the
writing were such that countless readers came to look upon
the family as personal friends,
So if was with real regret that readers of the "Chronicles"
learned a week or so ago that Mrs, Clarke has decided to
bring the column to an end; and on their behalf we extend
to her congratulations for a job well done and best wishes
for the future.
The Editor
I
T,„-illt; BIG BITE — Actor James Mason appears to be biting his lip as his attorney,
Joke Erlich (right), argues with Pamela Mason's lawyer-, Paul Caruso,. over the presence
of Portland Mason (left), 13, at a 'separate maintenance suit conference at Santa Monica, /
Calif. The ludae awarded Mrs, Mason (center) $,,000 Monthly., Pending hearing of her
suit for divorce,
EVERYtH MG" SHAKES — It's a wiggly World as Maurice
Chevalier and Jayne Mansfield give their all in e twisting
session during in 'Steele for the comedy film, "Panic Button,"
being filmed in Rome. Costarrino with them are Eleanor
Parker and Mike COrinors.
- Two Masterpieces
For Price Of One
It looked at, first like a routine
cob, The painting just needed
cleaning - nineteenth - century
'Varnish had tarried the lady's
cheeks a trifle yellow-and the
canvas backing, which was dis
integrating from old age, needed
replacing. In. Kansas City, some
weeks age, fames. Both, an ex-
pert art conservator, quietly be-
gan restoring Ce.zertne'a "The
Artist's Sister."
The painting, owned by the
St. Louis City Art Museum, was
one of eight Cezannes that had
been stolen a year ago while
on loan to an exhibit in Aix-en,-
Provence, France, the artist's
birthplace. The stolen paintings
were all found in an abandoned
automobile in Marseille last
April; fortunately the thieves
had treated "The Artist's Sister"
gently, and it bad suffered al-
most no damage. The thieves had
only removed its frame, Once it
was returned, the St, Louis Mu-
seum decided to have it cleaned
and relined.
In his lab, Roth started on the
backing after he finished the
cleaning job. First he carefully
cut the old liner away in strips
with a razor blade. Then he at-
tacked the unusually thick layer
of glue underneath. With wet
packs of warm waterssoaleed
gauze, he reduced it to a jelly-
like consistency and began deli-
cately picking the particles away
with miniature spatulas. What
emerged to Roth's surprise, was
not the blank brown canvas he
had expected to find but a heavy
application of dark green paint.
During three days of digging out
glue, Roth watched as another
Cezanne-a portrait of a peasant
-gradually appeared,
Last month, the St. Louis Mu-
seum put its double Cezanne on
view, suitably mounted so that
the faces on bath sides were vis-
ible. Since the newly found one
Is upside down in relation, to
"The Artist's Sister," a guard
obligingly swivels it vertically in
its special frame for the benefit
of visitors, Museum director
Charles Nagel has estimated that,
the find raises the value of the
work to $225,000, $75,000 more
than the current value of the
original painting, which the mu-
seum bought for only $7,500 in
1934,
Delighted with his double
painting, Nagel commented last
month in St. Louis: "It's a nice
little dividend. A fantastic turn.
of events - to have a painting
stolen, get it back, and then find
out you have two instead of one."
Up until now, the only Cezannes
the museum had in its collection
were a water calor and "The
Artist's Sister,"
"It's a fully' realized sketch
with the full authority of Cezan-
ne's talent," Nagel said. "It was
robably done when he was in
early 20s, a few years before
he did his sister in 1868 or '69.
It's an obvious choice, if you had
to cover one face or the other,
which one you would choose, but
it is still a sketch of museum
quality." •
SINGING CURE
Mr. Raymond Myers of Syd-
ney, Australia, issneer was-an
asthma sufferer but instead of
letting •sumaner aggravate his
condition he got relief from seri-
ous attacks by opening his lungs
and singing.
Now, Mr, Myers, as a student
at the Conservatoritern of Music,
has carried off the top prize for
operatic singing by winning the
national area competition organ-
ized by the Sydney Opera-House,
Anyone who isn't in debt these
days is probably underprivileged.
Japanese stoic genius for suffer-
ing colossal damage and then get-
ting on quietly with the repairs.
Lifting this curtain of silence,
Noel F. Busch has written a
vivid, terrible, and in many ways
inspiring book entitled "Two
Minutes To Noon." The effect is
all the stronger because Busch,
an experienced journalist and
writer on Oriental subjects, now
with Reader's Digest, has a form-
al clarity of exposition which
would certainly appeal to the
classic Japanese taste.
The start of all the vast devas-
tation was the seismographic
shacks which began just before,
noon on Sept. I, centering in"
Sagano Bay some 57 miles south-
west of Tokyo. Rapidly, the
quakes shattered the wood and
paper Japanese houses (stone
buildings were mostly left stand-
ing); a myriad of fires broke out;
they Were often fed by oil from
the bursting tanks of the petro-
leum industry; tidal waves loom-
ed over the shores, and as the
appalling heat inland produced
vast updrafts, air rushed in and
formed whirlwinds and tornadoes
which left fantastic carnage, One
great twister, for example, roar-
ed through the open space near
Tokyo's Army Clothing Depot,
where 40,000 people had massed
to escape the fire and heat, and
when it had passed only a few
hundred were left alive. By
nightfall, the fiery city served at
a reeding lamp for people 10
miles away,
Among the many survivors he
interviewed. Busch is specially
attentive to Dr. Eikichi Ikegu-
ehi, who lost his wife and three
children in the raging furnace
and was violently scorched hims
self. He spent the following hor-
rendous hours convinced that his
own death was near, but passion-
ately determined to nave the
bodies of his near and dear re-
I covered and properly buried.
Upon his parting with Dr. Ike-
guchi, Busch makes the comment:
"The Japanse, as is well known,
have a custom of bowing when
they say good-by, I was glad to
conform with this on taking leave
of Dr, Ikeguclii,"
Q. is there anything at all I
can do about bone or tellttioid
knitting needles that have bras
ken?
A, It is possible sometimes to
to get more life out of them.
They are easily sharpened in a
pencil sharpener, or with a
knife. Smooth with en emery
board.
Princess With A
Mind Of Her Own
One of the most popular and
determined members of our
Royal family-.that is Princess
Xarina, formerly Duchess of
Kent,.
Through the years the Princess
has endeared herself to the Brit-
ish Public by her personality and
Charm, But even as a child in
her native Greece she had the
seine endearing qualities, as well
as being one of the loveliest of
children with her gold-brown
eyes and hair,
In those far-off, far-away days
she learned her beautiful Eng-
lish from her Governess, a Miss
Fox, and even insisted on saying
her goodnight prayers in English,
When her grandmother, Queen
Olga, asked why she wouldn't
pray in. Greek She replied:
"I've arranged it with God, I
told him I liked to talk to Him
in English best, and He said:
`Please yourself, Marina, All
languages are the same to me.'"
One evening she was told to go
to bed at six o'clock and say her
prayers like any other good little
girl.
"Lots of other little girls are
going to bed now," she argued,
."God must be terribly busy lis-
tening to all their prayers.
"If I go to bed later on, the
rush will be over and God will
have more time to listen to me,"
Her father, Prince Nicholas,
once lectured her for some 31118 4
deed, telling her she ought to tell
God she was sorry for being
naughty,
Looking him straight in the
eye, she answered: "What would
be the use? If God knows every-
thing He must know I'm sorry
without being told. I don't want
to waste His time,"
She didn't like music lessons,
so her father sat down at the
piano and began picking out
nursery rhymes with one finger
while she solemnly watched.
"Come along," he said, "you
see Papa trying, don't you?"
"Yes," she replied with a quick,
mischievons smile, "that's why
I don't," Papa retired, defeated.
Her French governess, Mlle.
Perrin, said of her at the age of
six: "I remember how delighted
she was when I had a headache.
"She would come into my room
pretending to be the doctor and
f,ut cold compresses on my fore-
head. In doing so she saturated
my bedclothes!" These stories are
recounted in an admirable bio-
graphy Princess Marina,
Duchess of Kent by J, Went-
worth Day.
As a young girl Marina was re-
solved to marry only for love.
Once she overheard the family
solemnly discussing the upheaval
caused when her elder sister
Olga suddenly broke off her en-
gagement to the Crown Prince
Frederick of Denmark.
"Why on earth," she broke in,
"should Olga marry him if she
doesn't love him? I wouldn't, .."
Smiling, her mother comment-
ed: "Out of the mouths of
babes. . ."
A game she loved to play with
her two sisters and friends was
"keeping house" up in a fig tree
on an island where the Prin-
cesses spent their summer. Baro-
ness Helena von der Hoven, a
family friend recorcted;
"Each member of the party
had her own branch which rep-
resented her 'room' and all the
figs on this branch were entire-
ly her property.
"One could visit the other and
exchange fruit which was care-
fully passed over on fresh green
leaves,
"It needed a lot of agility not
to drop any and if such a mis-
fortune happened it was greeted
with a lot of merry laughter and
jokes,
"Though one of the youngest,
Princess Marina was always the
ringleader and kept the company
in fits of laughter by mimicking
her governess."
More than once during her
girlhood war and revolution
drove the family into exile.
When Greece became a re-
public under Venizel•os in 1922
and King Constantine, her uncle,
left his country for ever, Prince
Nicholas accompanied him to
Palermo, Sicily,
He thn cabled his wife and
two elder daughters in Paris, and
Marina, who had been sent to
England, to join him, And there
the family reunited,
Once More, says Wentworth
Day, their roots had been torn
up, Their old home had gone.
Their fortune was confiscated,
For the second time they were
wanderers on the face or the
earth,
Marina, then a tall, slender
sixteen, looked at her parents
and said, with that touch of mis-
chief which sometimes lit her
face: "We really needn't have
unpacked our trunks."
Later, in Paris, Prince Nichdlas
took a studio at Auteuil, painted
all day, and sold his -pictures at
good prices to augment the
meagre Tarnily funds, He and
Marina often went out sketching,
One day a little girl with her
iSsUE 19 -181 Z
JUST KIDS — Gay Bishop's
two little buddies are just
babies, yet they enjoy a
friendly get-together, espec.,
daily when it's dinner. Peter
the bunny, nibbles a hickory
nut, while Willy, the squirrel,
sips milk from a doll's bottle,
mother stopped and stared at the
couple, busy with their paint
boxes,
"Are those musicians, Mum-
my?" she asked, "Do we have
to give them a sou?"
After Constantine's abdication
her uncle, Prince Christopher,
rescued her father's money and
securities and her mother's jew-
ellery in a daring eascape from
Athens at a time when five min-
isters and a general were shot by
Venizelos's orders and her other
uncle, Prince Andrew - Prince
Philip's father-narrowly escap-
ed the same fate.
Helped by his lawyer and old
tutor Prince "Christo" stowed the
jewellery in an old wooden box
with its bottom almost falling
out, put on his oldest clothes, and
drove down to the quay.
There the three boarded a
small rowing boat, fearing every
minute that the harbour officials
would recognize and detain them.
They'd brought with them a
large white Persian cat in a
basket. Marina's mother's dear-
est pet. It drew attention to
them by yowling.
Next a suitcase burst open.
Stocks, share certificates, money
spilled out and were hastily
stuffed back.
When they reached their ob-
jective, an Italian steamer, an
armed Greek sentry with orders
to examine every passport bar-
red the gangway.
Venizelos was making sure
that no member of the royal
family would get away on that
ship.
"Christo" ran up the gangway,
gave the sentry a tremendous
blow in the stomach which dou-
bled him up, and rushed to his
cabin, where the sentry had no
power to arrest him.
The tutor got past, too, with
all the, luggage, jewels, money,
and securities.
Despite all her family's mis-
fortunes Marina eventually found
happiness in her marriage to
Prince George, Duke • of Kent,
who said of her:
"She's the one woman with
whom I could be happy to spend
the rest of my life."
But tragedy dogged her again
when he died in an air crash in
Scotland during the Sedond
World War,
Wentworth Day gives a reveal-
ing account of her life and per-
sonality, and the dramatic events
that beset her family, in this
first authentic biography.
Today the Princess is an ele-
gant and much respected public
figure who shows little of the
many, and sometimes harrowing,
vicissitudes she has had to en-
dure, This timely biography can
only further enhance the wide
esteem in which she is held.
Kidnapper! On.
Her Honeymoon!
Tire beautiful young bride had
always dreamed or a InNurious
hello-moo:I on the French itinies•
ra. nut she and her .sailor-hus-
band had had such a whirlwind
courtship they only had enough
money for their hotel expenses.
That w:ts whir
claw w and his moldy one-year-
old In ide, Helga, were hitch-hik-
ing down to the coast.
"We'll ha% e h honey moon
you'll never forgot!" vowed
Joachim, after the wedding at
Cuxhaven, Germany, lie didn't
know how right he. wasessbut it
was riot in the way he imagin-
ed. ,
An .attractive girl cloen't have.
to wait long on the highway if
she wants a lift--e'v'en though
she is not alone.
The first car that stopped took
them to Hamburg. Next day they
hart reached Basle, in Switzer-
land. 'It was already dark as they
tried to thumb a lift on the third
stage of their trek,
A big, fast -car stopped, "Where
do y ou want to go to, friends?"
asked the swarthy young man at
the wheel, "Anywhere to the.
South? Yes, that's the only sen-
sible thing to do in this terrible
wet summer, You're lucky, I'm
going through to Marseilles."
As the radio played soft music,
the driver asked questions. When
he discovered they were just
married and were on their
honeymoon, he exclaimed: "What
a pity! I am. always too late."
A few hours later the Algerian
stopped outside a roadside inn,
"I've run out of cigarettes," he
said, turning to Joachim. -Will
you get me three packets?"
Joachim felt slightly uneasy,
but he went into the inn to buy
the cigarettes. Two minutes
later, as he came out, he saw the
tail-lights of the car disappearing
along the road!
In the oar Helga screamed in
terror. "Stop," she shouted, "or
I'll jump min" The Algerian.
laughed. "To jump out of a car
at 90 mph, is suicide!" •
Meanwhile Joachim was in a
frenzy. He knew that unless the
Algerian was stopped something
terrible would happen to Helga.
- The innkeeper was helpful, He
phoned the police and found a
motorbike . which Joachim could
hire,.
Lea-ping on the machine, Joac-
him roared away in pursuit, In
half an hour 'he was only a few
yards behind the Algerian. 'Thuna
(Wog along beside the Rhone,
Milne canal they reached a den-,
geron4. bend, ffeither slackened
speed..
'Look. .hercained
But it was too late-the car
crashed through the barrier and
plunged below the surfaeo of the
canal.
Teariagotf his jacket, join:him
dived in. Hut lw could see AQ ,
thing. in the quirky water. Then
anddenly two heads bobbed to
the surittet., JOWIlitil Sham over
to: Helga and tried calm her
as„.ire .ztrugeled in the water.
Ttnn Au-pea with relief its
the police ears roared up te the
edge of the canal and played
I heir sVillVillightS an the water,
The three were soon 'tithed out.
Amazingly, none of them wits
hurt. The Algerian is. now in
Mulheuse jail,: awaiting his trial.
Helga and Joachim continued
their honeymoon. But ihey won't
do any mnre hitch-hiking,
Wanted Machinery
But Bought Wives
Last yea). 2,304 African traders
•teelved $750,000 in loans from
the Kenya Government-to help
traders to develop and expand
their businesees.
Recently, the Ministry of Com-
merce and Industry inquired into
how the Afriemis were using
their grants, To its dismay it
found that the majority of men.
instead of investing in machinery
or putting up new factories, had
used the money to purchase new
wives.
But perhaps.. as the Minister
Mr. Muliro,. suggesten to Kenya's
Legislative Council, these wife.
investors will derive benefits on,
a long-term basis from. their
peculiar business investiment po-
licy.
Whether regarded from a sheet
or long-term viewpoint, the Afri-
cans themselves are in no doubt
about the wisdom of their con-
duct.
As one Atriczut explained: "By
buying a good wife, a strongly
built, muscular working girl, I
can now expand my enterprise
without taking on an extra work-
er and paying him or her wages.
"So, my grant is really work-
ing for me, It provides me with.
cheap labour and reliable • la-
bour.”
He grinned as he added. "I'm
also finding it easy to keep my
wife up to the. job. She can't,
shirk her duties and fall Into
casual or makeshift Ways like
some wage earners today."
•
Great Catastrophe
Almost Forgotten
The most generally forgotten
grand catastrophe in recent his-
tory, except by those who were
close to it, is probably the Jap-
anese earthquake of 1923. Yet
among all the natural disasters
of which convincing records are
available, this was the greatest
in all history. In Tokyo alone,
it resulted in a fire covering
nearly twice the area of the fa-
mous London,, Chicago, and San
Francisco fires combined. Some
60 per cent of • the city, including
300,000 private houses, was de-
stroyed. In Yokohama things
were worse-80 per cent of the
city reduced to rubble and ashes.
The total loss of life was around
140,000 (none of the atom-bomb
or incendiary fires in Japan dur-
ing World War II was more de-
structive than the 1923 Tokyo
blaze or approached it in area).
One reason why the horror has
been so widely forgotten, is the
HISTORIC CHURCH DESTROYED — Elevated general view
shows fire that destroyed historic St. Mary's Cathedral in Sort
Francisco,