... OLDEST MINSTREL DIES Alfred j. wentworth. who at 101 was Britain's oldest minstrel, died on December 21 at an old people's home at Charlton Kings. Cheltenham. As a young man, Mr. Wentworth founded a troop of minstrels in his native Wandsworth. They performed in the Isle of Wight during summer seasons, and became known as the Wentworth troop of Royal Osborne minstrels after they had appeared ...

... O.A.Ps' PARTY A concert, arranged by Tiny Ransom, followed the fifth annual dinner of St. Clement's Old Age Pensioners at Lcigh-on-Sca, when some enjoyable items figured in a long programme Artists included Ben Baga, George Price. Al Danner, Cyril Draw, Bill Johnson. Gladys Middlelon, Constance Kent, and Andrew Dawn. The com pere was Arthur Ransom and some 280 old-timers were present. ...

... THREE SHOWS AT WORTHING WORTHING is fo have three summer shows visiting the Pier Pavilion at different times next summer. Usually they have one for the entire season. Clark son Rose with Twinkle will appear for six weeks from the middle of May to June 29. This will be followed by John Berry- man's Evening Stars, with Norman Vaughan and the Burt Twins, both of whom have played Worthing ...

... FLYING VISIT (\N a flying visit to Exmouth was Horace Mashford. remembered lor his appearances in Palace of Varieties and the Exmouth sum mer show. The Follies, last season, and now playing in panto mime at Exeter Royal. After pantomime Mr. Mashford starts rehearsals lor revue, Chase the Blues Away, due to open at Rothcrham. March 5. Conita Dawn and Leslie Gunby. who were with Mr. Mashford ...

... by ANTHONY COOKMAN MR. T. S. ELIOT is a fine but difficult poet whose almost inhuman distrust of earthly love has given his poetry a distinctive flavour. His detached criticism of the most universal of the emotions has helped to make him the idol of several generations of intellectuals. His latest play (seen at the Edinburgh Festival and opening shortly at the Cambridge) is going to give his ...

... Elizabeth Betven TO-MORROW IS ALREADY HERE, by Robert Jungle (Hart-Davis; 16s.), is sub-titled Scenes from a Man made World, and is, in my view, as grim a book as we are likely to have for many a season. For here is a picture, not of swift mass-extinction under atomic warfare, but of the slow subjugation of humanity by inhuman forces now taking place in atomic peacetime. Man, stated Shelley ...

... A readable and interesting book, The Valley of the Pyrene (Cassell 2 is.), is about one of the more ...

... THE first edition of Wild Fowl Decoys, by Joel Barber, appeared about twenty years ago, and very rarely indeed do copies come into the market, which is the measure of, its popularity amongst those who know a new edition (Dover Publications, with Mayflower Publishing Co. 65s.) is therefore very welcome. This is without any doubt a collector's piece in every sense written with the devotion and ...

... The most recent addition to the Lonsdale Library is Motor Racing (Seeley, Service 35s.), edited by S. C. H. Davis. Those who con tribute chapters are a most distin guished band Sir William Lyons, F. A. Wadsworth, J. S. Webber, George Baird, Rudolph Uhlenhaut amongst them and this book must be about the most conprehensive of the readable treatises on the subject which have appeared. Certainly, ...

... Books 011 Wine By T. A. Laytou IN 1508, publisher Wynkyn do Worde published (in Flete Strete, at the Sygne of the Sonne) his famous Boke of Keruynge, or carving. Technical terms for a true carver were as follows: Chyne that samon tear that egge splaye that breme frusshe that chikyn dysmembre that heron thye that pegyon undertraunche that purpos por poise culpon that troute alaye that fesande ...

... A CHALK stream fisherman who was described as being in a class by himself when it carne to catching fish (which is, after all, the object of the exercise); a most prolific writer under his own name and many adopted signa tures; a constant campaigner for a wider outlook on the sport; a man who had to work hard for his living and who continued to do so till he was eighty; a fly fisherman with ...

... I DR. ALLAN FRASER has produced a revised second edition of his excellent book, (Crosby Lockwood; 21s.), in which he has included reference and discussion to the economic and technological changes that have taken place in the pattern of beef production since the book was first published in 1953. All the original material has been modified where necessary and two entirely new chapters have ...