SPECTATOR COMPETITION No. 32

Report by Peter Townsend

A prize was offered for words, designed to attract cities.

Smoke-belching chimneys, squalid back-to-back houses, foundries sweating with metallic heat, murky streets drenched with rain and soot, the self-satisfied smiles of a squat brewery or a pottery kiln, the untidy tin of a gasworks thrown into a corner, the ornamenta- tion of mid-Victorian architecture, football-pools and speedways, canals and furnaces, overalls, washing on the line—these are the assets of an industrial city. Or so competitors would like us to believe. There were those who were desperately sincere about such assets, and there were those who mocked them unmercifully. Some tried to " sell " industrialism in the best guide-book fashion—Man- chester was " King Cotton's Capital," Birmingham " the mighty heart of England," " the cradle of England's industrial greatness," "the gateway to Shakespeare's country." Others realised that indus- trial cities cannot compete for the attentions of the tourist on the same level with Canterbury, Cambridge and the Cotswolds. Thus we had Terence Kelly's, " Are you secretly bored by historic monu- ments and the English village ? Do you want a holiday that's different ? ", Frances Collingwood's " Visit Wolverhampton and tell the world," and W. J. Carson's " This city breeds comedians. . . . You have to be funny to live in Live' pool."

Few competitors were able to convey the smirk of irony while vehemently proclaiming the virtues of a Leeds or a Manchester. Too often they became sarcastic or insensitive or pathetic in their partisanship. However, Oxford was described as " A vital industrial hub." John Holdsworth, on Leeds, alleged, " You will never forget the trams like gondolas cutting through the November fog," and D. R. Peddy's last paragraph on Liverpool was his best, " Mersey- side's healthful breezes beckon. Forsake your soft, green island haunts and come where there's romance in the racket and grandeur in the grime."

Despite gallant efforts by those who attempted to characterise British industrialism in the names of the industrial cities of " Soot- chester," " Stinkerton," " Grimestone-on-Sludge," " Sootbury " and " Coketown," despite the anecdotal appeal of Guy Kendall's " Black- ton," despite Terence Kelly's brilliant catalogue, I decided to divide the prize equally between Wilfrid Goatman, Pauline Willis and

E. Bedwell. • Prize Winners (WILFRID GOATMAN)

WHEN in Wales, see Swansea, home of the masters of metal. Enter by Landore, so that you may miss none of the works whereby man, in mastering metal, has mastered Nature, too. See the wicket of St. Helen, across the road from Patti's Pavilion, and visit the Civic Centre, whited sepulchre of the Brangwyn Tapestries.

Climb Kilvey ; watch Tyr John, in silent, kilowatted strength, warm and energise the life-stream of this thriving hive, and then survey the docks, so that you may know where all the big steamers are coming to. Listen to the songs of seventeen sirens, as they vie with theseagull's mew.

Seek among the blitz-created flatlands the spot Beau Nash once trod ; tone up your system with the spinach of the sea (but remember to ask for laverbread); touch tinplate for luck ; talk with melters and smelters, and learn thereby the lilting patois of Welsh-infected English. Savour the scent the great tankers bring from Abadan.

Then, when the senses are satiated with the hum of productive activity, go by electric train (return fare Is. 8d.) round the noble sweep of Swansea Bay to relax in that glory of Wales, the Mumbles.

(PAULINE COME TO SUNDERLAND THE WONDERLAND

SUNDERLAND, standing astride the beautiful river Wear, like a Colossus, has a worldwide reputation as a North Sea port. The harbour is a scene of intense, virile activity, and shipbuilding is carried on day and night le the accompaniment of thousands of automatic riveters. This SYmphony of sound is swollen by the piccolo- and flute-like voices of railway engines as they move their valuable loads of coal from the mines to the staithes.

If Sunderland's reputation is built with her ships, it is further enhanced h., the coal transhipped to the three corners of the globe, for coal is the life-blood of this living, throbbing organism. a publicity blurb, in not more than 200 foreign tourists to one of our industrial

History has dealt liberally with the town whose ramparts have been submerged in time, but for these who seek evidence of the bloody incursions of invading Danes, Norsemen, Picts and other marauding races, Sunderland offers a scope second to none. Age-old and modern customs live side by side in amity in this remarkable centre whose walls are laved by the Wear which drains water from the green, friendly hills of County Durham.

(E. BEDWELL)

ARNOLD BENNETT WAS RIGHT

"THEY," said the famous author, "are unique and indispensable." He wrote this of the FIVE TOWNS, his own birthplace ; birthplace, too, of the world's most famous china. One can recite the litany of the vulgar, as Hilaire Belloc had it ; one can have a suitcase dazzling with glamour- resort labels, but it's the FIVE TOWNS, pearl-cluster of the industrial Midlands, that yields to the discerning traveller that final touch of urban poetry. Ringed by the renowned landscape of bottle-shaped ovens, the visitor of imagination can feel himself a pigmy Gulliver walking among the necks of Brobdingnagian flagons. At night, when the ovens flame into the dark sky, he sees the visions Dante saw in his Inferno.

"Cards," choirs and craftsmen—the FIVE TOWNS have them all. The land of the immemorial, proverbial, Biblical figure of the potter at his wheel ; where girls, like the fabulous Chinese, pass endless days painting the leaves and petals of flowers.

" Unique," without doubt. " Indispensable "? Without the

FIVE TOWNS, womb of the teacup, the teapot, Britain's national drink— threatened by samovar and glass—would lose the whole of its national look!