COUNTRY LIFE
De-urbanised Children
We have heard too much of children and expectant mothers giving way to the nostalgia for the town. The following incident is also true. Half a dozen urban children evacuated to the very centre of England—so far as this eccentric land has a centre—hid in a Midsummer Night's wood when their parents came to fetch them. The neighbourhood of Stratford- on-Avon had proved too strong an influence. This most English bit of England, for all the gloom of approaching winter, is today nearly at its loveliest. The autumnal colour came almost with the speed of a rainbow. The oaks, green at the end of the week, were bronze at the beginning of the next. Although other approaches to Stratford have been ruined by the buEders of " concrete mendacities," the Warwick road still keep its Shakespearean charm, and the gratitude of all of us should remain towards those local patriots who saved it, or half-saved it ; for there is still salvation to be done thereabouts if more children are to hide among the trees and to find books in the running brooks, including the Avon itself. Another half-saved place that is better worth a visit now than at any date is High Wycombe. The beeches outdo Burnham itself.
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