The business—not editorial—partnership between that unique quarterly The Countryman and
Punch found singularly happy expression in the luncheon given a few days ago by the proprietors of the latter journal to the editor and founder of The Countryman, Mr. J. W. Robertson Scott, on his retirement after twenty-one years' service. The Prime Minister was there, and Lord Wavell and Sir Stafford Cripps, whose son is The Countryman's new editor, and various other well-known persons associated with the country or with journalism or both. There were at least three able-bodied octogenarians present in addition to the chief guest—Dr. Gilbert Murray, Sir Ernest Graham Little and Mr. W. W. Hadley, editor of The Sunday Times. Mr. Robertson Scott himself, casting about for new tasks at 81, mentioned that he intends to write the story of the Pall Mall Gazette, on which he worked half a century and more ago with Greenwood and W. T. Stead and Cook and J. A. Spender. After that I hope he will set to work on his reminiscences ; few men have enjoyed a life at once so long, so satisfying and so full of varied interest. As for The Countryman, to have edited and published such a paper for twenty years in a village in the depths of Oxfordshire, miles from anywhere, is a unique achievement.
* *
Previous page
