The Waterbury Democrat., 1945-11-30

AN AMERICAN IN LONDON
 Dear Walter: My trip by Clipper from New York to London was smooth, pleasant. uneventful. I left LaGuardia airfield at 3 p. m, had breakfast in Ireland and dinner al the Savoy in London.
 got up the next morning at 6:3C and started walking. I was anxious to see whatt he blitz had done to this city. walked for approxi- mately five hours, and was stunned by what I saw. We have read in the New York papers that mill lion homes and buildings were hit but any figure with six cyphers means nothing on paper-you must see 1t to understand it.
 London Is still here, but 1t re- minds you of some enormous ami nal trying to lick a thousand wounds. Some parts of the town are intact-but not many parts There is a square mile of devasta- ton around St. Paul's Cathedral which by some miracle escaped. You will walk down a street and think 1t is intact-the front of the hous- es seem okay. Then you turn the corner and realize that they are only fronts, that the buildings have disappeared. Landmarks, musems and great examples of architec- tural beauty-by the hundreds have disappeared from the face of the earth.
 When I got back tot the Savoy Hotel I bought couple of after noon papers, and the headline that caught my eye was was Poor Ger many" Then followed a piece of writing which suggested that Lon don share its meagre rations with the Germans. It's all pretty con- fusing. Poor Germany, hell! Poor London!! I find very little bitter ness here about the Germans; these people just don't know how to hate and I think they will live to re- gret it.
 In America we think of England fn terms of economic principles, the average Englishman is thinking of the future in terms of the next lllGdl. JlloG 4o1A CAlOdSAA OO cat. The average mans rations for the week wouldn't add up to one New York meal. People queue up in lines a block long to buy an ice cream cone. A pound of grapes sells for SIP in our money Eggs are pleasant memory. A pair of nylons is a fabulous gift. The Stork Club lipStickS that l took along are accepted with squeals of delight by ladies with titles
 I have seen prettier girls at parties and in restaurants here, than I have on the stage. The pro- ducers here seem more interested in their comedians and scripts.
 I brought over a dozen pair Of nylon stockings. Suffice for you to know that Sid Skolsky with ny Ions would be a greater tavorite here than Vic Mature without.
 Our G. Is made a great i'm pression here in London and are genuinely missed. London thought them a bit crude at the beginning, but their general good looks, happy go-lucky dispositions and overall generosity won them millions ot friends. Very few of the popular comedians fail to crack some Jokes about getting their girls back now that the Americans have gone.
 thought I might buy some paintings and old silver here, put works of art in Enugland cost 70 to 100 per cent more than they do in New York. The same goes for fine old furniture,
 The daily newspaper IS one page folded, which gives you four pages of reading matter. For newspaper man here it's something like work ing inside of an egg cup. Consid- ering everything, think they're doing a magnificent job.
 I leave by plane for Paris this Thursday morning, November Z2no' After 3 or 4 days there I'm going on to Frankfurt, Nuremberg, Held- eiberg, Berchtesgaden, Munich and Berlin-though not necessarily III that order. A soldier-Show of mine --the Diamond Horse Snoe-ls playing somewhere in Germany ana I hope to spend some ulille W1Cil It, don't know whether 1 can do anything to improve it, but I'll try.
 With practically no exceptions, every show is a sellout and they have twice as many shows current lv playing as we have in New York. A theater ticket is one of the few ttings they can buy without ration points. Some shows are good, some are bad. It doesn't seem to mat ter. The musicals that have seen don't come up to our standards, but they have repertory company with Laurence Olivier as the moving spirit, which makes anything on Broadway look like a penny arcade In every sense I think that this IS the finest bit of theater anywhere in the world. The company in- cludes Ralph Richardson, probably the best actor on the boards in any country. Sybil Thorndike, Lau- renee Olivier and long list of their most distinguished actors e-------------