City and Suburban
BY JOHN BETJEMAN INOTICE that last week's Spectator was an `Irish Number.' This week I have some Irish notes. I have just come back from County Waterford. The sun shone all the time. The Knockmealdown Mountains were purple and the gorse on their foothills gold. The woods were at their best, not yet in leaf and with all the colours of bursting buds, brown of beech, silver of alder and yellowish-green of sycamore. Salmon were leaping in the River Blackwater, and by its grassy margin I was re- minded of England's greatest loss, the loss of silence and the relaxation that goes with quiet. For here by the Blackwater the only sounds were water lapping against stone, the rumble of ass carts, the tremendous singing of birds, occasional human footsteps and the distant barking of a dog; never an aeroplane, hardly ever a motor-car, tractor or motor-bicycle, those essen- tial interrupters of country quiet in England. Back here in the City of London, with Messrs. Willment's cranes and excavators working all day opposite me and lorries changing gear as they go round corners, 1 am conscious of that tensing of nerves and muscles which one makes against noise. It is something one is not conscious of until one comes back from the heavenly quiet, that natural quiet with its natural noises, which is to be found in Ireland—and, of course, in Radnorshire.
AN IRISH LAMENT I returned to Dublin (Kingsbridge Station : Sancton Wood, 1844; rich baroque like the unpaid-for palace of an Irish peer) in ai diesel express from. Limerick Junction and travelled first- class so as to sit in the front behind the driver and watch the railway lines widening towards me as we rushed through the middle of Ireland, so wrongly called dull, and received salutes from porters on flowery country stations. And there, in Dublin, I learned sad railway news. The Great Northern Railway of Ireland is being bludgeoned by the Transport Commission of Northern Ireland, which is obviously in close touch with Sir Brian Robertson, that unhappy General, into shutting many of its branch lines in its north-western section. An inquiry was being held and the south was resisting. If these branch lines are shut it will mean that Bundoran becomes more motor-coaches than houses, that the thousands of pilgrims who go to Lough Derg will have to find other means of transport—already we are being told that the closing here is an anti-Catholic move by Northern Ireland--but it also means the end of the last horse- drawn railway in these islands. I refer to the branch from Fintona Junction to Fintona. God save the Great Northern Railway of Ireland, Dundalk, which is its Swindon, and all its lovely rolling stock !
JOHNNIE BY GASLIGHT I had a very interesting conversation the' other day with the representative of the North Thames Gas Board who came to mend my gas-fire. I was asking about the possibility of having gas-light in my rooms instead of electric. He said he had not had such a request in his long service in gas. He told me that printeri often use gas, as it gives a better light and economises on heating. The biggest gas-lit area he knew was Smithfield Goods Station (GWR), where there are 50 nozzles. It is my nearest station in London and if only I were a round of beef and not a human being I could travel straight to my home in Wantage without the trouble of getting to Paddington.
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