Amy, C. B. E.

SAM, BEN, and JACK* Cry all, "Alack!" And wring your hands in vain! SAM, JACK, and BEN, Cry all, "Amen!" In triplicate refrain! For you, I fear, This flying year By AMY are stir passed, Whom all the new Johnsonian crew Now welcome home at last.

Such was the "Song of the Johnsons. . . . Indited in honor of the Return of La Bien-Aimee Johnson to the Shores of Albion" fortnight ago by the London Graphic.

With a smile on her lips and a severe pain in her stomach. Amy ("Call-me-Johnnie") Johnson, Commander of the Order of the British Empire, first woman to make a solo flight from London to Australia (TIME, June 2), landed last week from an Imperial Airways liner at Croydon. A "Johnsonian crew'' of more than 50,000 exuberant Britons splashed through mudpuddles to welcome her home.

On a special platform were Rt. Hon. Margaret ("Saint Maggie") Bondfield, Minister of Labor; Rt. Hon. Brig.-General Lord Thomson, Secretary of State for Air, and a fringe of subsidiary dignitaries. Bravely ignoring the gripings of acute indigestion, Commander Amy clutched a bouquet of posies, embraced her beaming parents, listened to speeches of welcome, spoke cheerily into a microphone.

Londoners, who have often smiled at U. S. hero-hysteria, took the occasion to make the return of Amy a public demonstration of the prowess of Young Britain, a formal refutation of "decay in the gardens of England." "I wish to emphasize particularly," said Lord Thomson, "that 1930 has been a young woman's year."

Present on the welcoming committee, featured throughout the celebrations was slightly masculine Miss Marjorie Elaine Foster, 37, the eagle-eyed Frimley chicken farmer. Wartime ambulance driver, who last month defeated the best shots in the British service for the famed King's Prize, crown of rifle-shooters.*

Next day Motormaker Sir William Morris presented Amy Johnson with one of his automobiles.

Following day Commander Amy was even more fulsomely feted at a luncheon given by Lord Rothermere's Daily Mail for "200 Britons Who Have Achieved Fame While They Were Young." Against doctors' orders Commander Amy sat in the place of honor, nibbling dry toast. Publisher Rothermere's son, Hon. Edmond Cecil Harmsworth, handed her a contract for all her writings, a check for $50,000. Besides Riflewoman Marjorie Foster, other heroines present included Miss Winifred Brown, aviatrix who won the King's Cup for a race round England (TIME, June 14); Ivy Hawke, Channel swimmer; Diana Fishwick, golf champion; Joan Manning Saunders, exhibitor at the Royal Academy when she was only 16; Sylvia Thompson, novelist.

Heroes at the luncheon included Sir Arthur Whitten Brown, first non-stop trans Atlantic aviator, who flew with the late Sir John Alcock from Newfoundland to Ireland eight years before Lindbergh; slightly grizzled Louis Bleriot, first to fly the English Channel, now a millionaire French planemaker; Squadron Leader Augustus H. Orlebar, holder of the world's speed record (357.7 m. p. h.); Flight Lieut. H. R. D. Waghorn, winner of the Schneider Cup (1929). Wingless heroes included Herbert Wilbur ("Bunny") Austin, British tennis player; Robert Cedric Sherriff, insurance broker, author of Journey's End; John L. Baird, inventor of the first practical television apparatus.

*SAM Johnson, scrofulous sage of the 18th Century; BEN Jonson, Elizabethan playwright: JACK Johnson, blackamoor pugilist. *In a floppy felt hat and a pair of khaki trousers, Markswoman Foster turned in a card of 280 out of a possible 300 at 300, 500, 600, 900, and 1,000 yards on a windy day. Runner-up was a ''man in skirts"--Lieut. Alexander Eccles, Seaforth Highlander, with 279.

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