In Darkest England

Loretta Young had quite a time in London. She curtsied to the Queen at a command performance; she saw the city's patched-up ruins; she thought it simply wonderful how plucky the British were in their gloom-bound island. When she got safely home to California, she poured out her impressions to sympathetic Gene Handsaker, an A.P. feature writer, who set it all down in heart-throbbing prose. Sample quotes:

Loopy? Absurd? " 'You get the feeling over there that people are tired, drained of feeling'. . . . A business executive was walking on cardboard-patched soles for lack of a ration coupon. . .A tiny girl asked, when given a bit of coveted chocolate: 'Do I lick or do I bite?'. . . Factory workers faint around 11 a.m. for lack of adequate breakfasts. . . . 'In two weeks I never saw a piece of meat'. . . Seventy-five pounds of food she brought over prolonged the lives of ten persons. . . ."

The English proved not quite so drained of feeling as Loretta thought. When the A.P. story appeared in London papers, Londoners snorted or guffawed. Said a bus conductor: "She must be loopy." "Absurd," snapped Cockney Sally, who' serves afternoon tea in a London office.

Huffed plump Sir Alexander Maxwell, leader of Britain's tourist drive: "I trust Miss Young will have the good sense to retract. . . . There is not an atom of truth in any of her statements. . . ."

Grinned the Daily Herald: "The case of the cardboard-soled business executive is very moving. Did he, we wonder, try to touch Miss Young for a taxi fare? . . . If she is aware of the achievements of our nation in industrial output . . . she must surely realize that a tired people . . . could scarcely perform such feats." The Daily Mirror was avuncular: "Miss Young . . . has a kind heart. . . . The contrast between Hollywood opulence and our own modest state may have made the film star ultrasensitive. . . ."

The Moral? Next day, Loretta'Young divulged her sources: the executive's shoes story came from a U.S. woman correspondent (who, apparently, doesn't know that coupons aren't required for resoling shoes). The chocolate-bar-and-piteous-child incident was told her by a British waiter, whose little boy had shared a bar with a neighboring girl. Londoners thought that "Do I lick or do I bite?" might be a polite, childish equivalent for "How much can I have?" Loretta's scoop on the fainting factory workers was from a housewife who said it was a problem to get enough food for her husband's breakfast.

The moral, if any, seemed to be that grousing was one British product not intended for the export trade.

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