Evening star., 1936-02-09
BY CHARLES NITTTER,

Associated Press Foreign STAFF Writer.
LONDON.-King Georges last ILL
ness found every one on the alert and
prepared for the emergency except
those in charge of the vital communi-
cation facilities necessary to bring the
story to the outside world.
So the newspaper story of Sandring-
ham and coverage of the dramatic
event was one of cold, sleepless hard
work, constant struggle to get the
news topped only by despairing efforts
for wire facilities.
Though the Feathers Hotel in Der
singham, scene of the coverage, is
scarcely 100 miles from Fleet street, a
more remote inadequately prepared
spot for such drama Is difficult to
imagine in the congested British Isles.
Though a $3.50 chance had existed
for years the Kings fatal illness would
overtake him at Sandringham, post
Office and telephone authorities had
done little to prepare for such an
who rushed there following the bulle-
tin "the King has q cold" found COM
munications in q hopeless muddle,
with only two lines connecting the
hamlet.
Mile From Estate.
The Feathers, typical, frigid, Eng
iish country inn, became newspaper
headquarters because it lay scarcely
a mile from the Kings estate, and had
q telephone-one telephone. The
other available instrument was in
cherries concrete telephone booth in
front of the village post ONCE before
which reporters impatiently lined up
waiting their turn.
Within "a hours after the doctors
revealed there was cause for anxiety
in the Kings condition, nearly 100
reporters and photographers were
packed into the utterly inadequate
facilities of the little inn.
First arrivals, had Communicated
the available 10 bed rooms and those
arriving later had no time to look
for quarters or to use them If they
were to be found, for the death fash
was expected momentarily.
Reporters overran the dark little
hallway housing the candle-lighted
telephone booth, trying to get through
to London. Others hurried in char
tered motor cars.
Dawn Sunday started a rush of
correspondents to the estate to study
the ground and to dig for additional
facts and color. No one was admitted
and the only source Of official news
came through q hastily arranged sys-
TEN whereby the Kings equerry, Mai.
Alexander Harding, passed along bull
letins to one British journalist at the
Feathers.
Associated Press Service.
This man was the reporter for the
Press Association, which Is the Eng
lish ally Of the Associated Press. Press
Association wires 60 into the Lon
don Office of the A. p.
He in turn, being physically in pos
session of the one telephone, flashed
the report to his London ofiice, where
after it was public property to news
HaPCx L1Cu 16lG0 WASAl bAAC SkCcknlLAx6
fight to get the information ont.
The press room was q goldfish
bowl. There was no privacy given
or expected. Eventually hard-pressed
linemen strung 13 telephone lines into
Dersineham, but the phones were in
stalled in o battery In the press room.
Newspaper men were confronted with
the somewhat embarrassing necessity
of shouting highly descriptive phrases
and facts into telephones, within
earshot of 20 or SO competitors.
The huddled, fireside comment from
rivals, as q reporter delivered himself
of q particularly colorful sentence,
formed an interesting thread In the
pattern Of life, amid such circum-
stances.
The lone Japanese correspondent,