12 DECEMBER 1952, Page 22

The Village at Night.

Light in the village street at night depends on how thick the window- curtains are, save at the corner where one solitary lamp burns. Now and then a door opens and illuminates a strip across the road, but the shadows are deep and undisturbed until a car or a bus comes through. When the bus arrives, its windows are usually steamed, and only at the door can the faces of those coming off or climbing aboard be seen. Going up the street after the last bus has departed, a man on foot might hear the muffled sound of the wireless or someone singing in Welsh in one of the cottages, but by half-past ten—the hotel closes at ten—most of the lights would be out, and by eleven the whole place would he in darkness. After eleven the headlamps Of a car make a racing reflection, on the windows of the unlit rooms. The noise of its passing dies away, and the place sits brooding until five or six o'clock, when here and there lights will come on and the new day will begin.