Gallant & Gay

INDEPENDENT MEMBER (363 pp.)--A. P. Herbert--Doubleday ($5).

Every Member of Parliament dies twice --once in the way of all flesh, but once, earlier, when he must rise to make his maiden speech. A polite mumble is par for the course. Only once in a blue moon can a new member move the old House to astonishment, amusement or anger.

Oxford University's Independent Member Alan Patrick Herbert turned the trick in 1935. With his back-bench seat scarcely two days warm, he bounced up brandishing a bill "to reform the indecent, hypocritical, cruel, and unjust marriage laws of this country." Said Herbert heatedly: "I swear it shall be passed before this Parliament is over."*

A Brazen Hussy. Chuckled Herbert's friend Winston Churchill later: "Call that a maiden speech? It was a brazen hussy of a speech. Never did such a painted lady of a speech parade itself before a modest Parliament."

Other members scowled. This, they said, was just what could be expected from an M.P. who had prepared for politics by writing musical comedies, novels (The Water Gipsies, Holy Deadlock) and humorous essays for Punch. But no one is likely to scowl at Independent Member, a sprightly, informal snapshot of the Mother of Parliaments with her hair down and her slip showing.

Scrap-happy "A.P." early decided what his own role in the House should be. He would sail against the prevailing windbags. For 14 years, while party bigwigs huffed & puffed about Munich and the dollar gap, Member Herbert concentrated on unpretentious but warmly human legislation. Items: more lenient divorce laws, Sunday theater, uniform pub hours. It was not always easy. Introducing a bill could become an endurance test. He more than once "bumped," i.e., bobbed up & down, for four and five hours before he finally caught the Speaker's eye.

An Honorable Gent. In a liquor-licensing debate, Lady Astor got A.P.'s dander up by referring to him as "the playboy of the drink world." Snapped he: "A regular course of narcotics would be extremely good for the noble lady and would make her less restive." As usual, she had the last word: "The noble lady will be restive in this House long after the honorable gent."

When war came, Herbert wagged his tongue in Commons less, wigwagged the semaphore flags on his river boat, Water Gipsy, more. Charged with mine-spotting on the Thames, Skipper Herbert also fought no-hit engagements with passing "doodlebugs" (V1 flying bombs), once scurried ashore with his crew to retrieve books (including one of his own) from his publisher's burning office. In midwar, he traveled to Newfoundland and Labrador on a parliamentary survey, made a report and duly noted that Labrador Husky dogs were "the only modified wolves in the Civil Service. Or perhaps not."

On the home front, he pushed a pet project for renaming the stars. Tired of such foreign nonsense as Betelgeuse (Armpit of the Central One), Herbert proposed that the heavens be dotted with Nelson, Drake, Cook.

After the war, the King gave him a knighthood--but the Socialist House abolished his Oxford University seat. Fun-loving A.P.'s last speech, in 1949, summed up the philosophy of a lifetime: "Whether we go up or down, let us show that we can be gracious, and gallant--and gay!"

* A cool year and nine months later, it was.

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