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':ty J. P. W. MALLALIEU, M.P. THIRTY-TWO years ago, almost to the hour, and perhaps to the very minute, I was walking across Leicester Square for the first time, holding my father's hand. This Monday, with my wife, I walked across Leicester Square again, perhaps for the thousandth time. But I felt no weight of years, for in 1952, as in 1920, I was going to see Willie Smith play billiards.
Billiards is not one of my favourite games. Indeed I have played it with real pleasure only on an eighth-size table owned by a school friend. I once made a break of 48 on this table, without tilting it even once. But I was a fan, in those far-off days, of Willie Smith, not only because he was world champion, not only because I believed, mistakenly, that he was born in Yorkshire, but also because the school friend who owned the eighth-size table was a fan of Willie Smith's great rival, Melbourne Inman.
So in 1920 when I was to see Smith repel yet another of Inman's assaults, I was teetering with expectancy as I crossed the Square; and in 1952 I teetered again, not with the unblunted expectancy of a child, but with the nostalgic longinab to recapture which conies with middle-age. I seemed to remember it all so well—the big hall with banks of seats rising to the walls in darkness and only the table lit, except for a glow over the scoring board where the white-gloved marker stood. The table seemed like a green, sun-lit clearing in a jungle—in a jungle from which hundreds of eyes stared intently. There must have been some sound—for the balls clicked and the marker called the score from each shot- 93, 96, 99, 102, 5, 8 . . , but I do not remember that there was applause to greet the hundred. There was, perhaps, a sudden catching of breath as a ball lost strength near the pocket, perhaps an involuntary sigh when, after all, it toppled in. But I remember best the silence, alive and intent, as the break mounted and then the sudden, staccato " Ah!" when it ended.
Of course, too, I remember Willie Smith. He made a big break that day, 500 or more. I remember his brisk movements round the table, the concentration of his eyes, the inclination of his head as he paused a moment to consider not the next shot but the next shot but five. I remember, too, the little hard laugh he issued on the few occasions when he fluked. But my memories from that day are not wholly of Willie Smith. After a few minutes absolute perfection becomes a little dull; and there were times during Smith's big break when my eyes wandered, wandered just beyond the rectangle of light to where Smith's opponent was sitting. Inman had a beak instead of a nose. Tom Webster used to draw it and, in his drawings, Inman's nose was always elevated so disdainfully that it ran parallel with the ceiling. There he was, -sitting upright—as straight and upright as the cue he grasped—and there was that nose. It was elevated so far that the eyes beside it were compelled to close. But perhaps they shut really tight only when the staccato shout announced that his opponent's break was over. It was then that I saw Inman at his greatest.
For many seconds he did not move. Then he opened his eyes. Then he lowered his nose. Finally he rose from his seat and stalked towards the table. A yard from the table he stopped as if stunned—for these were the days when the silent movies were making dramatic gestures popular. One felt that Inman had been confronted with the lifeless body -of his only child. He ' stared at the balls on the table. Tben, imperiously he beckoned to the marker, and down the marker came, white gloves and all. There was. a consultation. Had Smith, we wondered, chipped a piece off the white ? Had he somehow loaded the red ? Inman was pointing. Worse, he was elevating that nose again. At last the marker tightened his white gloves, picked up the cue-ball, marked its position with a piece of chalk, examined it, blew on it. polished it on his sleeve and replaced it: All was now well. Inman had seen a speck of dust on the ball, the speck had been removed and conditions were now fit for Inman to play. He played. With his first shot he potted the white. With his second he left Smith a double balk and retired again to his chair just beyond the rectangle of light. if I remember rightly, he stayed, there for the rest of the afternoon, for,- in spite of the double balk. Smith scored with his next shot and went on to make a second large break.
I knew-I could not recapture that on Monday, for Melbourne Inman gesticulates and pots the white no more; and there was another memory that was past recapture. In the 1920s, when the time to end serious play had come, the audience used to call for demonstrations of special shots. " How do you do this? How is that shot done?" they would ask, and one or other of the players would show how. When, during my first visit, this had gone on for some minutes a rather languid voice from the front row said: " Smith ! How do you play that screw- back?" It was A. J. Balfour. From that moment I forgot about screw-backs, forgot about Smith, forgot about Inman and thought only of Balfour; for in those days 1 considered politicians more important than billiard-players or even cricketers.. • This week as I entered the Leicester Square Hall there was no A. J. Balfour in the front row. But the table was as gfeen and sunlit as ever, and from it shone the one red ball. There were only a half-dozen men in the seats, and they were passing the time complaining about the admission prices, or the decisions of the referee at the England and Wales international. But as the clock moved on towards three, the hall began to fill, the talk of rugger faded and a cosy. intimate glow began to pervade us. In another moment a cosy, intimate affectionate. round of applause greeted two men in their shirt-sleeves as they came through the door; and there was Willie Smith again, celebrating this very week his 66th birthday, but still bushy- browed and clear-eyed. Clear-eyed ? After the photographers had gone, Smith pulled out a pair of rimless spectacles and said to the audience: " I didn't put these on till that lot were out of the way. I don't want people to know how old I am." And then he laughed that little dry laugh I remembered so well. But it was really his opponent that most of the audience had come to see, for his opponent was none other than Joe Davis, the finest snooker-player and one of the best billiards-players the world has ever seen, and a player still at the height of his powerS. Smith and Davis are of different generations—and not merely in age. Whereas Smith, with his northern accent and his northern clothes and northern manners, belongs to the school which says " I am a great billiards-player. If you don't like the rest of me, you can lump it," Davis is a man of graceful assurance, who would feel and be at home in any company, whether there was a billiards-table there or not. Smith's is the rougher, more elemental school. Davis's school is polished, easy, efficient. Smith is a Dempsey. Davis is a Gene Tunney. To many in Monday's audience who knew only ,Davis, the Smith school was something so far out of the past that it could not be taken seriously. It could be treated only with affectionate amusement.
Smith must have caught some of this feeling. He had begun hesitantly, once missed the object ball completely. He shuffled around the table or sat in the background while Davis knocked up a beautiful break. But suddenly Smith seemed to become determined. Perhaps, sitting there in the shadows, he remembered Inman and so forgot Davis. Anyway, he came to the table, made a break of 192, reached the interval well ahead of Davis and then, when the pair switched to snooker, actually beat Davis at his own game.
It may be that Davis, too, was being tolerant, was holding back in deference to a great predecessor. But I should like to think that while, in the early stages, Davis was running ahead, Smith suddenly saw again the nose of Inman elevated to the ceiling, heard again the voice of Balfour and strode to the table in recaptured majesty.
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