1956 Romanian Journal

Pidgeon Post
An insight into the life of

Australian artist, Bill Pidgeon
(Wep) 1909 1981
About
1937 Caravan Journal
1956 Cultural Exchange
War Letters
Featured Paintings
Lennie Lower
Snowy Mountains
Thirzas journey of a life-time
Thirza Pidgeons 1937 World Tour
C AT E G O RY A RC H I V E S : 1 9 5 6 C U LT U R A L E XC H A N G E
Weps 1956 Romanian adventure;

Remembering Stephania Rotaru 16
years on
Posted on December 3, 2014
Around about 1972, Wep drafted the following letters. It is not known
whether they were ever sent. It would be nice to think that he was able
to re-establish contact with Stephania Rotaru but I suspect it never
happened. There is a good chance Stephania is still alive (79yrs) and if
so, I hope she learns of this blog and I get the chance to meet with her
one day and share some of these old recollections Peter Pidgeon
[Most likely addressed to the Director, Institutul Roman Pentru, Relatile
Culturale cu Strainatatea, Bucaresti]
Dear Sir,
During Oct 1956 I had the honour of being a guest in your Institute.
The charm and beauty of your country continues to grow in my
memory.
Two charming young ladies met me on arrival from Australia at

Bucuresti airport. Being a sentimentalist, I would like (after all these
years) to convey to each a remembrance of thanks and appreciation.
Is it possible for your department to forward these remembered friends

the enclosed letters. I suppose they have both married and changed
names. Could you please go through the records and forward these
notes? These were very nice to a lonely stranger from the Antipodes. If
it is not possible to trace these girls after all the years, would you
please return the letters (which are not important) to me or advise me
that.
To the bossy little unabashed girl who loved artists.

For no reason at all, since I was looking at gloomy television forecast of
the earthquake doom of San Francisco, I remembered my mica
mamitza Stephania. How I must have bored you yet you and Utzo
were tolerant of me.
You will not remember my unexpressed enjoyment of a picnic lunch by

the roadside of chicken and capsicums & what-here you. Or even my
picking up of the old mother-in-law pears outside Aiud. Or the way the
wine master made the motions of kissing your hand in the cellars after
we had drunk & exulted about his collective brandy.
Can you remember (no, it was meaningless work for you) as I do in

your new and strange land being up above Sinai, cold as frogs with
snow all about and the (to me) silly little falsetto whistles from the
express so far below in the valley where you made me get with the
Perronts(?).
You will not remember Utzo bumping a mudguard & having to get it
fixed at Orasul Stalin (Brasov) and you drearily walking with me all over
town looking for him & eve(ntually) finding the villain near the railway
crossing & the pigs squealing off in the trucks. No of course not. But I
remember your charming boyfriend who broadcast in English. He was
very nice yet I suppose you never got around to marrying him. So
many things I recollect after sixteen years, so meaningless, so really
unnecessary to any great communist purpose as you had at that time.
The remembrance of your Madonna almond eyes dissolved all the

edges off your brittle independence. Why was your boyfriend so much
softer and tolerant?
However, if I was too shy or too lousy to show it I loved you for being
my mamitza, still do.
No matter if you are fat and nearly forty full of bambinos & polenta,
please say one kind memory if you remember.
You must remember photographs I sent you, the magnificent church at

Alba Julia.
An excess of vino has occasioned all these sentimental reminiscences.

If ever the message arrives to you, please send me a little note tell
me if you are happy dont, if you are not.
It may surprise you that I remember almost every day and every meal I
had with you in Bucaresti & all over.
Arrivederci.
Posted in 1956 Cultural Exchange | Tagged Bra?ov, Bucharest, Institutul Roman

Pentru Relatile Culturale cu Strainatatea, Ora?ul
Stalin, Romania, Sinaia, Stefania Rotaru, Stephania Rotaru, Utzo |Leave a reply
Weps 1956 Romanian adventure;

Summer in Romania
Republica Populara Romina

BUCURESTI B-dul Nicolae Balcescu
SUMMER IN ROMANIA
by
W.E. Pidgeon
P. OShaughnessy
F. Hardy
Being the impressions of three Australians visiting Romania.
[Transcribed from a copy of a report in three parts by artist, William
Edwin Pidgeon; writer, Frank Hardy (part missing); and actor, Pat
OShaughnessy.]
PART ONE AN ARTISTS IMPRESSIONS
Two girls who met me at the airport said it was a Romanian Indian
Summer.
The airfield boundaries simmered and jingled in a brown haze of

Australian like heat, and apart from the presence of the fancy buildings
and the strange rapid speech, I could have been back home.
A re-emergence of summer had stretched right back over Europe-

perhaps had heated the Hungarians into their disastrous autumn.
Beneath the photographically watchful eyes of Stalin and Gheorghiu

Dej, my hostesses introduced themselves with the ease and grace
which, I found later, was part of the charm of the Rumanians. Somehow
they reflected this smoothness of the boulevarded approach of the city
to come.
It was a nice city from the air-not over big-ringed by lakes and an easy
countryside. Comfortable looking too.
But what can one see from 1000 m of the lives, aspirations, frustrations
and despairs of a million people below?
Sleek, efficient Mrs Suteu, responsible for the care of English-speaking

visitors, and young Stefanie Rotaru, with Italian Madonna eyes, did
their best to explain.
Bucharest, founded on the site of a Roman Fortress, has had a long and
chequered history, overrun often by Turkish, Austrian, German and
Russian invaders.
Many armies, sweeping into Romania, carrying off the produce of its
soil; but the people remaining; proud of their distant Roman
connections; speaking a Latin language; maintaining their distinctive
quality; an isolated group now associated with others of alien tongue in
a common endeavour to achieve some measure of the theoretically
perfect state of socialist welfare.
Down the broad tree-lined streets, through the swelling autumn leaves,
past the showpiece parks, past the patient women sweepers, and
squashing over the mongrel chestnuts which an occasional stooping
figure is gathering for pig food. Past the Russian Memorial, its beds
ablaze with red salvia, threading through the once ritzy embassy
quarters, and down a long and narrow shopping street to the Athenee
Palace Hotel which sits on the end of the square that fronts the ex-royal
palace. The Athenee, main accommodating house for foreign visitors;
in prewar days the stomping ground of elegant women, diplomats,
officers and big commercial men; now a bedlam of tongues, skilfully
unscrambled by the young interpreters. It is as though one were living
under the clock in the Central Railway Station. It is all talk, meetings
and appointments-interminable comings and goings. Rough red wines,
beer, the inevitable tzuica (plum brandy) and the favourite dry white
wine-a hock drunk with mineral water-and food! Mountains of food, at
prices well beyond the average pocket. Tiny national flags brighten the
tables, identifying this group as Bulgarians, that as Koreans, another as
Swedes, there are Italians, and here Australians. Footballers, union
delegates, poets, marksmen, painters and agriculturalists, anything
you like, some on goodwill missions, others on jours of critical
investigation, some merely competitive sportsmen from neighbouring
Communist states, but all guests of the Romanian government which
seeks to extend its relations with foreign countries.
I never had time to see the inside Bucharest. What lay behind the
diverse facades, those plastered fillers that sat so discreetly behind the
fading leaves. Many must have been built since 1918, for the
population was then only 350,000. French culture dominated the city,
influencing much of the domestic architecture with its delegates. The
hierarchy appear to reside in the more well kept of these homes, while
others with a tired look, are rumoured out to those of more humble
status. No one seems interested in the maintenance of these often
charming lodgings, for revolutionaries societies are inordinately proud
of, and busy with, their latest and greatest projects. Over occupied
mansions are falling apart at the corners, while the interiors of full of
inhabitants who are seething with dialectical ideas on how to build the
future.
Their enthusiasm is tremendous, and is apparently projected

completely outward in terms of bigger and better edifices for the glory
of the socialist state. The visitor is whisked off to the barren acres,
whereon more and more monotonously designed workers flats in
varying states of construction rise out of the ground like an overnight
crop of our own seaside flats. But the new amenities are there-more
light, better plumbing, more playgrounds, more space.
Whole suburb-the 23 August suburb, brought into being as a

rd
celebration of the National Liberation Day (August 23 is the national

holiday of the Rumanians. On that date the whole country celebrates
the anniversary of the day in 1944, when the Romanian Communist
Party led the outbreak of insurrection against the Germans). Everything
is new and wonderful and breathtaking for the people, because it has
been built by the people for the people.
The 23 August Open-Air Theatre, which I would have liked to have
rd
seen in operation, but did not-a beautiful concrete shell, with a neo-
Grecian concrete stage beneath a lovely autumn night. It is in projects
like this that one senses the urge for the full life. People with scarcely a
pants to their suit clamouring for, and getting, riches in the simplicities
of art. Occupying considerably less space than a Drive in Movie, the
theatre is quite elemental ineffective design (see illustration [location
unknown]).
In a large recreation ground in front of the entrance to the theatre the
more active and intrepid of the 23 of Augustians can devote
rd
themselves to soccer, high jumps and sundry other death-defying

sports. A steel tower 80 metres high caters for those who are too
rugged for the Greek chorus. Just for fun one can climb up this glorious
symbol and leap therefrom to the ground-with the aid of a small
parachute, if you are so inclined. Fortunately, my interpreter Stefanie,
was not an enthusiast. Behind all this the 23 August Steelworks
rd
belches fourth flame for the future.

Also included in this terribly healthy suburb is the 23 August Stadium.
rd
An enormous bowl, bulldozed out of the ground; a concrete saucer

seating 100,000 people around a standard Olympic field.
But Bucharests real pride and joy is the Scinteia House Printing Centre,
situated by the lovely Lake Herastrau at the edge of the city. Set in 98
acres of formally laid out parkland, this huge building, designed in
typically Russian neoclassical style, is 220 yards in length and depth,
and culminates in a tower 327 feet high. The central block
accommodates the Cultural Administration offices and the literary
workers. The wings, stretching to each side and behind, hows the
machinery which produces practically all Rumanias newspapers,
educational publications and cultural and scientific books. Begun in
1950, Scinteia had one rotary newspaper press in operation by 1951.
By 1953 twelve presses were producing, on the average 2,500,000
newspapers a day. The building was completely finished 23 August Day
rd
1956. Daily production also includes 50,000 magazines and 80,000 to

100,000 books. The floorspace is vast, allowing more than ample
clearance for all machines and the whole place is extremely clean; in
fact, the working conditions could not be bettered. There is a concert
hall, library, club, canteen and so on.
When you leave you sign the Visitors Book saying how fine it is (which
it is), you feel that its all happened before; this tagging round on some
Good Fellowship excursion, through a new steelworks or the latest in
synthetic biscuit factories.
Massive buildings, showpieces, impressive portents of the future they

may be-but I liked better to wander alone early in the morning round
the more ordinary parts of the city and to watch its life begin.
Down past the ex-Royal Palace, unimpressive and dead looking in the
cool autumn mist, yet alive within, for it houses now the capitals Art
Gallery, with its superb El Grecos and carefully roped off Rembrandts.
Down to the bottom end of the town, passing some womenfolk queued
up for short supplies. Round by the old massive Palace of Justice, a turn
to bring you down by the river, the Domboditza, of which it is said, he
who drinks of the waters comes to drink again. Not that one can
imagine accepting any part of this now scruffy stream which seems to
disappear beneath the bustling square, perhaps to re-appear
somewhere further on in an even sadder state. Up the ancient hill to
arrive at the heart of the old civic centre, and a short way on, the
barracks alongside as your footsteps clatter over the cobbled streets,
through which the laden tram cars run down to the city and a new day.
Back over the river, dawdling to watch the little stands offering their
freshly cooked pastries and sweets. Through a fine park its drives and
footways circling the lake, the skiffs quietly moored and the statues
gleaming in the early light. Through a market square to which the
outside peasants have brought, in their quaint carts, the daily offering
of vegetables and fowl.
A cold snap has stampeded the proletariat into doing up their shirt
collars, and an amazing collection of headwear comforts the hitherto
hatless heads. Caps, berets, battered felts, and occasional homberg,
and assorted styles in strakan bob up and down the streets. Now
looming up a railway station to dole and dreary to be associated with
the romance, fictional and otherwise of the Orient Express. It IS
Bucharest Station and London is a whole continent off.
Later you realise you have got yourself bushed, for maps of the city
seem to be unobtainable, and in the quiet residential area no
recognisable landmark is in sight. It is impossible to ask where you are,
or the way back. Nothing for it but to follow a tramline and hope it
leads you to, and not from, the city itself. It is a lucky day and a couple
of miles more place you nicely on the spot and just in time for
breakfast at the pub. Such pleasant and completely unrestricted
wandering sets you up in the receptive mood for the conducted round
that starts at nine.
Museums, art galleries, Pioneers palaces, Houses of Creation-

everything that is visible and tangible evidence of economic
emergence. The sensing of it all as a national possession, makes the
people feel that the construction, or whatever it is, is in itself unique,
whereas it is the relationship of the thing to society, that is unique.
Rumanians are building big-but so is every other country in the world.
What is of real interest is the hearts and minds of the men and women;
strange ways, remaining strange, because there is no easy
communication with them; for even the most willing interpreter, as I
had, leaves you with but half a tongue. You are seated down to a great
deal of bones from which the meaty subtleties are gone before you
start.
But you can sense the enthusiasm. Bookshops jammed with paper
backed volumes on every cultural and technical subject. Foreign
language books in English, French, German and Russian-above all
Russian-the secondary educational language-all the scientific works
copied straight from the Soviet presses. It is somehow moving to see
these, until recently, comparative illiterate people taking such huge
gulps of knowledge-it is a banquet, and all are feasting.
It was very pleasant to be driven 200 miles or more up country. Ute,

the chauffeur, was twenty-three, Stefania twenty-one, so in good
spirits, I stripped a few years and the picnic atmosphere was not
altogether extinguished. At my least request we would pull up, either to
paddle in the oil wells of Ploesti, contemplate the tobacco crops near
Sibui, take a photo of Aiud, or scramble off the road near Sebes to
gather the wild small pears which a passing peasant couple happily
observed were, Pere padurete pentru soacre (wild pears for the
mother in law). How right they were. But the chicken and ham and beer
by a stream in the Carpathians had more than made up for that. In the
night the high shrill notes of the locomotives bounced back and forth
between the mountains until they slowly echo off and join the silence
of the snow and pines.
In Orasul Stalin dear Ute, in our absence, had squeezed a mudguard,

God knows against what other car. For cars were few and far between
as the girl and I found out when we looked for him as we passed down
the long dark street that had neither turning nor offshoot for a mile and
whose houses were shuttered against the night and the dark
silhouettes which moved in and file down the highway and who were
the lifeblood and hope of the radiant town of Stalin to come. From the
hills came this sweep of the chill winds bearing with them from the
railway yards the grunts of the socialist pigs on the way to the
proletarian ham. And still no Ute. But he turned up later, car and all,
not a bump to be seen.
My mica mamitza (little mother-I had to call her that because I could
hardly eat or drink without her help) was somewhat sour-but, being
young, she forgot quickly when dear old Ute later at the Hotel dinner
offered her his latest in the dancing line. Greatly emboldened, I asked a
Hungarian lass for a dance. Beyond the marble floor, in the more
reticent cubicles, sat the English ambassador, ginger-ish and
impenetrable. I enjoyed my dance but neither of us could make any
sense of my execrable pidgin German. But it made her laugh.
Transylvania-I suppose everybody has licked their lips in Ruritanian

contemplation of princes and swarthy knights, of Draculas, werewolves,
vampires and crosses of oak.
Transylvania-musical comedy-the Gypsy Baron and all that, perhaps

true in the far off; but on to Cluj the road cuts through a plateau as
commonplace as the Monaro complacently rolling its brown ancient
plains against the Australian Alps.
And not a fence to be seen. All the land so carefully gone over and
worked through the centuries that each square foot is recognisable,
and forever placed in its relationship with its neighbour stop whole
families of peasants stop of their timeless four wheeled carts, drawn by
a pair of oxen, or more expensive horses, streaming out of the frequent
hamlets, towards their known and inviolate plot, marked only by the
mutually recognised boundaries invisible in the waiting soil. Here the
cart rests, and the oxen go to the plough, the man to his furrows and
the women to their cutting and sowing. All day in the fields with a
break for the midday meal and a pull at the painted clay water pitchers
calling in the shade of the wagon. At dusk, a heel to toe stream back to
the village, the younger people exchanging carts-holding hands.
Compactly built villages reflect the native love of colour. Long

continuous plastered walls, broken by the courtyard entrances arching
over the sturdy wooden doors, are reminders of the days of fortification
was more than a picturesque design. The individual residences gaily
painted in pinks, ochres, greys, whites and ultramarine.
And the shepherds; older than revolution and war, dressed as you
fondly hoped they would be. In tight white trousers, white aprons,
embroidered waistcoats and sheepskin cloaks, they shout and batter
the sheep (so many of them the black and long-haired dreams of fairy
tales), off the road before the approach of the imperious car.
The small flock of bleating animals, three belonging to one of the

peasants in the village, five belonging to another, to others, one, four,
two or six, all slowly eating their way to the higher pastures with the
community shepherd their guide and protector as in Biblical days. In
the fenceless pastures they must be watched, in the mountains there
are wolves, so their shepherd is always with them, and with him his
flute and his folksongs.
TWO
The Rumanians are energetic in keeping their folk music vital and alive.
Everything possible is being done to record and print extent tunes from
every province in the country, and much encouragement is given to
the emergence of new themes of folk song. Ballads like The Song of
the Tractor or The Light (electric) Has Come extoll the symbols of
the new life in the same way as other generations honoured the
images significant to them.
The music which is collected by the Folklore Institute could nominally

be divided into three categories:
1. Cantice Batrineste historical or legendary ballads

2. Doine love songs and elegies
3. Hore lively lyrics and dances
The three principal dance forms being:
1. Batuta an ancient national dance performed by men

only
2. Pe-Picior in which each man has from 2 to 5 partners
3. Hora a round dance with swaying rhythmic movement
embodying varying steps and tempo.
From Leon Ferarus Development of Romanian Poetry, we learn that
the doina is the lyric poetry of the Romanian peasantry, and expressed
almost all emotions, but is usually offered as a song of longing, or
sorrow. By some strange convention, perhaps derived from the
peasants love of nature, or some primitive form of nature worship, the
doina usually begins with the words A green lead of a (Rose, oak, or
some other flour or tree).
The doina tells of need, grief, textile and death. It takes the shape of
threat against oppression, it celebrates wine and carousel,
contemplates and worships the Creation. And persistently it intones
love. The doina follows the peasant, step-by-step, from infancy until his
end from lullaby to elegy.
Longing is the grand theme. An unknown author says, Longing is the

invention of the Devil. Longing torments the soul, clings to the soul like
a rambler and puts the heart on fire. The sign is equally disturbing: I
have side so much, laments one doina, I have side so hard, that my
heart pains me, my soul burns. I have side so much that the Lord
became angry, and not it no longer snows, it no longer rains and no
longer falls the dew.
There now exists a considerable number of popular folk music

orchestras, the most famous being the Barbu Lautaru ensemble (lautari
meaning village fiddlers). This group was formed some years ago for
the purpose of experimenting with the further progression of folk
music, which to these people, is a living art, capable of greater
expression and expansion. These groups present airs from the most
remote areas and generally help to keep the Rumanians keenly aware
of their own rich musical heritage, as against the pop and bepop of
overseas infiltration. The peasants are being taught to make their
flutes and suchlike instruments in a standard pitch-they are taught
ensemble work, and the tutors in turn, learn from the peasants who are
often extremely individualistic in their musicianship. It is, in fact, a two
scheme of education.
In the Athenee Concert Hall I heard the Barbu Lautaru group give a
most exciting two hours concert, playing the whole time with
seemingly inexhaustible vehemence. Forty-five musicians-tarragots-all
playing in ruthless fury. The emotion flowing in controlled and canalised
perfection-faster and faster and faster to an atomic cessation. The
great seething vibrance cut dead, with the precision of a guillotine, by
the downbeat of conductor Budisteanus baton. Soloists were many
who had been proclaimed laureates of their craft at different musical
festivals, the most popular being Maria Tanase, a slender good-looking
girl who sang Gypsy songs with passion. The great cries of Bis! Bis!
Bis! (which means encore) were ignored only by sheer physical
exhaustion.
This is not intellectual music. The innumerable dances and laments

that poor fourth from all the provinces of Romania come from the heart
the erstwhile illiterate peasant. His grief, his Geordie, his dancing, and
his history are all put to music, and passed on in the most indelible way
father to son, and from mother to daughter. Music without the
complications of intellectually constructed form. As elemental as the
earth, and the people who grew and died on it.
More serious music is not neglected. At the concert Hall I heard a
visiting Yugoslav conductor give a combined classical and modern
performance; and a few days later, a chamber music recital led by a
leading Italian artist.
Apart from the two hot months August and September, the opera
houses in Bucharest and the bigger provincial towns are open every
night to full houses. Prices are not low, although there are concession
nights for youth and factory worker groups. The Opera and Ballet
Theatre of the Romanian Peoples Republic in Bucharest was built in a
few months for the World Youth Festival of 1953. Much involuntary
labour was incorporated in the building. The interior is most
comfortable, and largely elegant with its sweeping stairways and
marbled paved foyers and bars.
THREE
Being largely of Latin descent the Rumanians are quite at home with
the emotionalism of the Italian Opera. I had the good fortune to see
performances of Aida and Rigoletto, but missed seeing any of the
works of the Russian composers.
Presentation of both these works was on spectacular and traditional

lines. There was none of that portable stage ware one associates with
touring opera companies. Egyptian gods (albeit papier-mch), so tall
their heads were lost in the heights of the stage, really moulded gates,
columns, stairways and triumphal arches, and lavish costuming
contribute to the sumptuousness of the production. I am not qualified
to add that the music and singing was on the same plane. Possibly not.
And almost nightly change of program over ten months of the year
would, I imagine tax the resources of the greatest of artists.
As most of these operas and concerts begin about 7:30 p.m., and you
cannot have your dinner at the hotel before 8:30 p.m., you are often
distracted by the thoughts of food. But at 10:30 p.m. the artistry is
over and the eating begins. The Athenee Palace Hotel Orchestra plays
tirelessly-folk songs, Viennese waltzes, German Polkas, English ballads,
and even an occasional American hit-sad to say the musicians
confessed complete ignorance of Waltzing Matilda-but if I could have
hummed the tune with any assurance at all, I am sure they would have
played it.
Confronted with a lavish menu, and surrounded by gargantuan eaters,

you give due consideration to the right dish. There is no hurry, for the
dining room will not be closed until 2:30 a.m.. Lots of people are fond
of your interpreter, and you are not altogether isolated because of your
linguistic disabilities.
I have long wondered at the curious differences in prices on the menu.

Not that it matters much anyway, because it is all on the house so to
speak, and if you and your interpreter invite guests to join you, they
too, are on the house. It is months now since I started to marvel at this
menu, and I have not yet ceased.
Before me is a copy which quotes (as part of the cold buff a preceding
the main courses) Sardines a Lhuille Jugoslave 22.50 Lei-the dearest
dish in the place. Sardines, mark you!
Taking the Lei as a unit we get the following comparisons:
Salade cavaire carpe is only 5.40, and you get more than you can eat-
very good too, even if it is not the high and mighty sturgeon.
3.50 for 100 grams of lemon when it is only 5.85 for the best part of
pound of ham. And 5.40 for a great plateful of wonderful smoked pork.
7.50 for an omelette aux fines herbes, and for a mere 9.40 a whacking
huge plate of roast pork, or 11.80 for half a chicken; 11.40 for vol-au-
vent financiere.
Only 1.55 for pickled whole capsicums, 1.25 for cucumber with a
dressing: that 7.40 four filtered coffee. But then coffee is a distant
import and is paid for in a hard currency market.
So you can see not too many Rumanians eat out of their own purse in
this establishment-especially when they know that one meal will set
them back the best part of a weeks wages. But it is no worse than
eating at the Ritz.
Speaking of prices, I suppose everyone likes to know what people

behind the Iron Curtain can buy with the money they earn. It is
extremely difficult for a stranger to form any idea of what the
standards of living are. By and large the Rumanians are not well
dressed. They spend a lot of money on food because they have the
great appetite. Their rents are fixed at a low normal rate of 5 6% of
their weekly income. With the unskilled workers wage at 600 Lei a
month, the figures I quote from shop windows in the provincial town of
Cluj may give you some idea of what he can do with his earnings.
Mens Lei Womens Lei
Suit 500 1000 ready-made frock 120 230
Overcoat 400 800 Costume 400
Shirt 80 high-heeled shoes 380
Tie 20 60 flat shoes 140
Hat 60 costume jewellery 20 90
Pyjamas 120
Shoes 140 400
Potatoes (kilogram) 0.65 Lei
Cabbage (about 2 pounds) 1 Lei
Butter (kilo) 18 Lei
Pork (kilo) 10 Lei
Cognac (bot) 90 Lei
Vodka (bot) 22 Lei
Tzuica (bot) 31 Lei
Beer (bot) 8 Lei
Bicycle 860 Lei
Motorbike (imported) 16,000 Lei
(FOOTNOTE on the foreign exchange market the Lei is held at about

to 1/6 Australian this may not be a real value rate for no foreigner
could exist for a week paying on this basis)
FOUR
As an artist I was primarily interested in the conditions and functions of

the artist in a socialist state.
It is apparent that given the necessary ability, and the willingness to
accept theory of socialist art, he is very well off indeed. In fact, he
enjoys, relative to his society a much more exalted position in the
social scale than does his counterpart in the Western world.
As a unit of promulgation of socialist consciousness he has special

privileges and responsibilities of which I will speak later. Like all other
workers, he belongs to the Union, in his case, The Plastic Arts Union,
which looks after his social welfare, supervisors and commissions his
work.
The youth who desire to become artists are selected from the final
school grade, and are admitted to the Institute of Plastic Arts where
they are given an allowance during thorough six-year course of training
which lies ahead.
The Institute in Bucharest, which teaches hundreds of students (among

them some Chinese and English), places a great emphasis on
draughtsmanship in the academic manner. This is understandable, as
art as officially conceived in Romania, as a tutorial aim, and is to be
clearly understood by the populace. Drawing is emphasised in pencil
and charcoal, pen and ink, in lithography, wood engraving and etching.
Sculpture, or more precisely, modelling in clay, dominates the final

year of the course. Ceramics and allied arts are taught to a high
standard. The quality of painting was generally disappointing. During
the sixth year the student is fully supported before his examination for
graduation into the Artists Union. After graduation he is under no
direction for two or three months, during which time he may go where
ever he chooses (still under full allowance) to gather material and ideas
for the commencement of his career.
Those students whose aptitude is not considered worthy of continual

encouragement by the Union may apply to some other union admission
to its particular craft. Failures at graduation may apply for enrolment in
allied artistic cooperatives in which a measure of artistic feeling is
combined with craftsmanship-the Artisan trades, such as
stonemasonry, woodcarving, decoration, etc.
To get back to our young artist.
If he has an idea for a painting, or a series of sketches he approaches

the Artists Union suggests his ideas and is well received, obtains a
loan from the Union to enable him to complete his project.
Having completed his work, he submits it to a committee appointed by
the Union, and if approved of, is purchased, and a deduction is made in
respect of the loan advanced.
If he should happen to sell his work to an individual, or some

unattached co-operative, he still repays the Artists Union the sum
advanced
If he is on the ball, our artist is now established.
Usually sells his work through the Union, and its local committees;
much as if he were to sell through, the commission by, the various
selection boards of societies of artists which exist in Australia of course
there is nothing to stop him selling his work to individuals, from what
little I could see, I doubt whether any individuals were either willing, or
economically capable of doing so.
The fundamental patron is the State-or, if you like, the Unions, and
other bodies associated with the apparatus collective management.
From here we move into the consideration of what all this works out in
terms of the living wage.
In Romania, all major buildings and projects, in, or under planned,

production are obliged to allocate a certain percentage (I was informed
by a sculptor it was equivalent to a minimum of 10 shillings per 1000)
of the total cost to the Plastic Arts Fund, which discusses the artistic
problems involved, how they should be distributed, and to which artist
or artists. Unfortunately I neglected to ask whether these allocations
were made on a competitive, or roster basis.
This is undoubtedly constant and practical support from artists from

governmental levels.
The Plastic Union also stages exhibitions (the works in which are for
sale), encourages discussions between artists and laymen, and
generally makes every attempt to synthesise their often opposed
points of view.
To give a better idea of how successful artists may become, I quote a

few figures from Mr Maxy, Director of the Bucharest Art Gallery, and
well-established artist.
As the average wage for an unskilled labourer would be the vicinity of

600 Lei a month, and for a skilled worker, such as a typesetter, 1000
Lei a month, Mr Maxys figures seemed to me to suggest the height of
affluence. Nevertheless, they received corroboration in other parts of
the country so I suppose it does apply to the top man, at least.
An established artist, having made an approved suggestion to the

Artists Union, will receive 2000 3000 Lei a month during the period of
his ideas incubation and appearance.
If his production is satisfactory to the Artists Union (which virtually

means that it will be accepted by the State), he will be paid anything
from 15,000 20,000 Lei for and heroic historical picture or 8,000
15,00 for a significant landscape.
It is possible for him to earn as much as 40,000 Lei for a grandiose

project, or even to name his own fee for what he submits. Mr Virgil
Fulicea of Cluj, is one of those who reap the benefits of these
arrangements. A sculptor strong, fluent and acceptable concepts, he
had in his studio a major work of three peasant girls from the Fagaras
region wearing costumes that survive from the Daccian (Roman) days
vigourous and optimistic in design, this over life-size work was worth, in
the plaster cast, 35,000 Lei to him. It represented six months work and
the State pays for and arranges the bronze casting of it. One could
hardly grumble at that.
He told me that for the big works it was usually he, one day or month,
so to speak, and someone else, the next.
Of course, he does not get this fee all the time. I understand there are
certain fixed prices-minimum, average and maximum and that juries
consider the necessity, appropriateness and value of the ideas
submitted.
On top of all this the living and creative conditions of the artist are
given special consideration, for it is the accepted thing in this society
that the artist should be spared all possible distractions.
If the artists work and ideas are well received he may be allocated
special quarters in one of the numerous Houses of Creation, which
resemble private hotels housing a community of interests. He is given
accommodation, congenial working quarters, and dining and assembly
facilities.
I visited two such establishments in Bucharest.

Firstly, the Magosoaia Palace which had been taken over for sculptors,
although at the time I saw it, it was not completely ready for
occupation. The beautiful palace, built byBrancoveanu in 1724, is small
gracefully designed and overlooks formal gardens which lead down to
the river lined with rushes alive with the sunlight and the wind.
The architecture with its warm bricks and slender pillars has a Muslim
touch, probably influenced by the Turks who dominated the country
from many generations. Byzantine gold mosaics paves the main foyer
where now the proletarian artist treads and meditates.
House of Creation number two was a much more modest affair, set in a
nice clump of trees in the best residential area of the town itself, and is
the workplace of painters and top sculptors, Medres and Baraski.
Monstera Deliciosa was set in pots around the veranda facing the
lawns.
Heroes of Romanian history were lying dismembered in the studios. A

plaster head of Balcescu, two feet six from the neck up, lies alongside
an equally gargantuan shin and foot of Eminescu. All these bits and
pieces awaiting dispatch to the foundry, from whence, assembled and
in bronze, they will brave the elements in noble and optimistic city
squares.
Newspaper artists working for the daily press get 500 600 Lei for
each cartoon that appears. They are not on the staff, and are a body of
freelance men who make themselves available at extra short notice,
like their colleagues anywhere else in the world. So we see that even
three or four drawings of week puts these men in the upper crust
bracket.
I did not have time to find out how the Artisans, like ceramic workers,
woodcarvers, wrought iron workers, embroiderers and the like were
paid, but their productions had the technical excellence, and were
quite as skilful in design as those of the traditional folklore masters.
I attended the opening of the Biennial Exhibition of Romanian

Decorative Art in a new modern Gallery in Bucharest. 280 artists had
sent in over 2000 exhibits, most of which were on show, and extremely
well done in a form of modernised traditionalism.
The exhibitions sponsors were the Ministry for Culture, the Union of
Plastic Arts, the Ministry for Light Industry, and the Artisans
Cooperatives. In his official speech Mr Mac Constantinescu sculptor,
and Professor of Decorative Art, made the following points.
Romanian art faces now social aspects of life, and if there are many
difficulties to be contended with, it is for us to find a way to surmount
them.
There is no doubt there are still great problems, but if all creative
forces are stimulated, the artist, or Artisan, knows that in overcoming
them he will be able to do something for society, and will be aware of
the importance of his work in the decorative ensemble.
If we fight for the development of artistic personality and creative

imagination, our decorative arts will be a great success in our days.
Experiments and innovations in the technical and conceptual points of

view, which are presented at this exhibition are, and must be,
welcome. The task of the exhibition is to submit the exhibits to the
critical appreciation of the public. Only thus are we able to choose or
select the most worthy from the exhibition, and only thus can we
progress.
I think that within these few remarks one finds the central problem of
social start. Or, to be more explicit, the essential contradiction in
Socialist realism which has not yet been synthesised. On the one hand
we have the demand for experiments and innovations from the
technical and conceptual points of view, on the other, that these
experiments and innovations the only worthy when accepted by the
public.
This is a fine and forward-looking thought inferring the best of all

possible publics. But no one could seriously dispute the insufficiency of
the general public as the final arbiters of what is, and what is not, valid
in art at the immediate time of its production. The public has always
been a generation behind in the appreciation of the great
revolutionaries in any of the arts. Can one imagine how a Czanne
would fare under the critical direction of the masses? Genius is
inevitably ahead of contemporary thought and cannot be conditioned
by. That genius is rare, so it doesnt matter, is beside the point. Even
the talented artist must have the right to experiment in terms of vision
beyond the immediate comprehension of the public.
No doubt a free Socialist art is possible. But there is little evidence that
socialism has yet brought forth anything of universal significance in the
plastic arts. It is possible to sympathise with the aspirations of
socialism yet be completely unmoved by its artistic lecturings. I feel
that the Rumanians, and artistic race, are somewhat ware of this,
although at the present stage of their social development they are
overburdened with official Soviet dogma on such matters. In theory the
Rumanians are free to paint in any manner they choose so long as they
are sincere and passionate in their interpretation of life (Mr Mircea
Deac, who is Director of the Fine Arts Department, a member of The
Plastic Arts Union, and art critic, informs me that there is nothing to
stop an artist painting in any style whatever, that official recognition is
given to those who are sincere, and present the socialistically
conceived realities of life. The artist is expected to describe life
passionately, and the form in which the artist elects to do so is left to
him.) But who was the adjudicator of passion and sincerity?
In practice, the artists reflect the official directives of the optimistic and
heroic socialism in terms of naturalism that is to be understood by the
dullest of wits. Art is used as an instrument in the education of the
masses, and in this respect much of it is scarcely different in essence
(although it is in aim) from the insinuative commercial artwork
produced in the West.
It is interesting to note a few remarks in The Literary Gazette

(Romanian) by art critic Petru Comarnescu. Speaking of world-famous
abstract sculptor Brancusi, a Romanian, long resident in France,
Cormarnescu says; inter-alia
That Brancusi enriched universal culture by his works

which had their roots in the primitive forms of his own
countrys folk wood carvings
that although he worked abroad he never forgot his
formative background Gorj, where he was born; and
always maintained relationships with his homeland
although he is now 80 and lives in Paris.
that he went to Paris in 1904 and followed the classical
sculptors from Michelangelo to especially Rodin will stop
in 1915 became influenced by Romanian folklore and
woodcarving, and while he was now placing less stress
on naturalistic human form, the abstractions which were
emerging Web-based, not on cubist theory, but on
Romanian folk art and symbolism.
That his work was not empty of human content, and that
his imitators followed only the abstract and decorative
surface elements of his work, and that their work is null
and void, because they missed the inner convictions of
Brancusis art;
that he was striving to seek for the essence of the
subject and that it was not easy to understand the
abstract portraits which pretend to express human form;
that he was mainly influenced by Romanian peasant and
Byzantine art which is not concerned with human form;
that present art critics (I presume Comarnescu means
Romanian critics) say Brancusi is presenting reality in an
archaic way, insofar as he maintains geometric form
rather than humanistic appearance;
that Brancusi, well appreciated in the West and in India,
is universally discussed, and should be discussed in
Romania because his work is inspired by Romanian folk
art-art which is polished by the hand of a great
contemporary sculptor;
that we (Rumanians) must observe that Brancusis art
not only expresses the old primitive times, but is an
example for our own young artists to find new ways of
expression appropriate to their feelings, and with the
new demands of their contemporary life.
There it is. Partly a nationalistic claim, partly an acknowledgement of
the greatness of his art. And while appreciation of such formers
admitted, one, casually at least, finds little tolerance of this style in
practice.
However, the artistic Rumanians may yet find room for another
innovator, such as Brancusi, one who, while not immediately intelligible
to the public, will not be constrained by official thinking.
I excuse myself quoting Russian sources, but I think they indicate

generally the socialist idea.
In Bucharest I read in the Soviet News (Oct. 16. 1956) and article
entitled Granting Indulgence to Modernism? By Mattias Sokolsky.
Speaking of musicians, which we can equate with artists, he says; As
for dodecafonia, it was never prohibited in this country and is not
prohibited now. Even if the idea should it ever occur to anyone to do
so, the fact remains there is nothing to prohibit. Dodecafonia has never
presented any temptation to Soviet composers. Dodecafonia is
something alien to their aesthetic tastes, their ethical views and their
creative aspirations.
Soviet musicians write for the people-that is their credo, the force that
unites them. In this they strive to carry on the traditions of the classics.
Dodecafonial music, on the other hand is egoistic. It is music not even
for a chosen few that at best for a single person. The platform of the
dodecafonists can hardly hope to unite musicians, for by its very nature
it estranges the musician from life, turns him into an egocentric. And it
is not a question of the individual inclinations or good intentions of the
dodecafonist. It is a question of a whole system of views, the very
essence of dodecafonia, which is divorced from the life and interests of
the people.
Slonimsky is therefore wrong in thinking that the indulgence will be

granted to Modernism.
NOTE: (today Modernism in music means dodecafonia. True, this

tendency dates back to Arnold Schenberg, is 12 tone system is usually
considered the beginning of dodecafonia. Same article).
Earlier I. Moskvin has said, The prime maxim of Socialist Realism is

that Art shall be true to life. We learned to see life in its movement, in
its development, in its endless variety. In the USSR new human
relations are developing on the basis of a totally new socialist attitude
towards labour, property and the home country. It is its mission to
reflect this new outlook. Its fulfilment requires a deep insight into
human psychology, emotional power and monumental form.
Also Karl Radek said, Socialist Realism means not only knowing reality,
as it is that whether it is moving. It is moving towards socialism, it is
moving towards the international proletariat. And a work of art created
by a socialist realist is one which shows wither that conflict of
contradicts is leading which the artist has seen in life and reflected in
his work.
Soviet author Yuri Clesha, thus, When we speak of art, we sometimes

forget that there are in the world to irreconcilable social systems That
the difference between our country and Europe is immense, not only in
the economic and political system but in spirit, in ideas-that is to say in
the very things which are expresses. We forget that the artist of the
West and the artist of this socialist land of ours expresses different
ideas and that there is more essential difference between them than
between economists and soldiers because the artist not only defines
what has taken place but also conjectures what will occur, foretells the
future.
This Socialist Realism is an emotional concept not easy to define-and

because of my inability to read the Romanian literature about it-and
the inadequacy of non-specialist translation-I feel at a considerable
disadvantage in attempting to explain convincingly the attitudes
involved.
Suffice it to say that what appeared to be the most acceptable artistic

subjects almost invariably spring from an illustrative idea. Pictures of
modern and ancient protagonists in the drama of struggle against
oppression-genre pictures of workers building and making a new
society, and peasants in various rural occupations.
In sculpture, much the same story, although done with more

conviction; the heroic figure lending itself more aptly to the massive
and elemental forms unadulterated by the atmospheric detains which
weaken the impact of the paintings.
An element of expressionism appears and within certain realistic limits

is well handled will stop abstraction and the incidental isms seem to
be completely absent. Art becomes the somewhat bread-and-buttery
diet of the many rather than the marijuana of the few.
For a well balanced and simplified outside viewpoint on socialist

realism, the words of Professor Radhakamal Mukerjee, eminent Indian
sociologist, could scarcely be bettered. I quote at length:
all authors, painters, sculptors, actors and playwrights receive an

encouragement unknown in any other country in the modern world.
The State gives regular orders to painters and sculptors for the purpose
of decorating public institutions, parks and factories, and also arranges
for the cheap supply of materials they use. Artists are relieved once for
all of the anxiety lest the products of their art should find no sale-so
wide has become the demand for works of art. There are also special
cooperatives for authors, painters, sculptors and other artists which
also help them on a new and lavish scale. On the other hand the artists
must be true to the proletarian ideal, and view life as the proletariat
view it. In the first place the artists and public are readily brought into
intimate touch with one another. Thus a painter, a sculptor, the novelist
or a dramatist are expected and encouraged to meet their audience
and to discuss with them the principles of artistic production and obtain
their criticisms and suggestions. If the artists do not follow the
generally prescribed path of Socialistic Realism, the ruling party in
Soviet Russia is strong and resolute enough to discourage any
individualistic deviations. Ideological opposition as well as the
withholding of orders and ostracism are enough to check the erring
spirit. In painting, for instance the object of proletariat art is to give
pleasure and regard life with optimism, and the dominant themes are
modern life with its fresh possibilities and strong wave of optimism as
well as neutral subjects. Landscapes, still-lifes, interiors and above all
portraits, are still permissible themes for Soviet painters. But strenuous
resistance is offered to painting which distorts the lines of reality and
pictures chaotic fragments in place of landscape and people; which
shows humdrum and insipid themes instead of joy and heroic reality.
The majority of good Russian painting is a revolution of the new
landscape the new people expressing the sincerity, joy and aspirations
of a people working towards a higher social integration and harmony. It
is also significant that many of the master artists are coming from the
working class. At the same time the danger of the working class, who
have not obtained adequate artistic education in such a short period of
emancipation, suppressing stylistic distinctiveness of individual artists
is not small. If new styles of mass art cannot obtain free expression due
to the verdict of the proletariat which is apt to develop standardised
artistic outlook and tastes, Soviet art may degenerate into a mere
pictorial representation of the environment without any profound
implications in emotional experience and form of expression.
Yet there is no doubt that there has been a gain to art to the world in
that at least in one country art is a social inspiration, is far removed
from a filling in the abstract that subsists on the support of a small
coterie, but expresses the emotional experience of the community at
large whose restrictions to it have an immediate effect on the attitude
and style of the artist
No state in any other country has been so active in both the

encouragement of artists and the diffusion of artistic education and
culture among the people. Only where art ceases to be an individual
experience and a luxury for the few, but represents a mass experience
for the enjoyment of all can it play its due role in the organisation of
society. (The Social Function of Art Radhakamal Mukherjee. Hind
Kitabs Ltd. Bombay 1948).
Posted in 1956 Cultural Exchange | Tagged 23rd August Open-Air Theatre, 23rd
August Stadium, 23rd August Steelworks, 23rd August suburb, Balcescu, Barbu
Lautaru, Biennial Exhibition of Romanian Decorative
Art, Brancusi, Bucharest, Budisteanu, culture, Director of the Fine Arts
Department,Eminescu, Folklore Institute, Food, Frank Hardy, Gheorghiu
Dej, Granting Indulgence to Modernism?,Hotel Athne Palace, Houses of
Creation, Institute of Plastic Arts, Mac Constantinescu, Magosoaia Palace, Maria
Tanase, Mattias Sokolsky, Ministry for Culture, Ministry for Light
Industry, Mircea Deac,Mrs Suteu, Ora?ul Stalin, Palace of Justice, Pat
O'Shaughnessy, Petru Comarnescu, Plastic Arts Union, Ploesti, Professor
Radhakamal Mukerjee, Romania, Romanian Communist Party, Romanian folk
music, Romanian National Liberation Day, Russian Memorial, Scinteia House
Printing Centre, Sebes,Sibui, Socialist Realism, Stalin, Stefania Rotaru, The
Opera and Ballet Theatre of the Romanian Peoples Republic, Ute, Virgil
Fulicea, William Edwin Pidgeon | Leave a reply
Weps 1956 Romanian adventure,

28 Nov-3 Dec; Homeward bound
Mon 26-Nov-56: Got train to Harwich, boat to Holland
Tue 27-Nov-56: Down the Rhine by Lorelei Express, arrived Zurich
about 9pm
Wed 28-Nov-56: Roamed around Zurich & caught plane at 7:30 back to
Aust.
Thu 29-Nov-56: Landed Instanbul about 1am. Passed by the mountains

near Mt Aararat. Landed Basra Karachi.
Fri 30-Nov-56: Calcutta about 1am, Singapore 11am. Stayed Raffles

saw dress rehersal of show.
Sat 1-Dec-56: Left Singapore 10:15am direct to Darwin arrived

8:45pm. Took off for Sydney about 11pm.
Sun 2-Dec-56: Arrived Mascot 7am. Met by Dorothy, Graham & Trellie
John Boyce in at dinner in evening.
Mon 3-Dec-56: Quiet day & loafed around few drinks.
Zurich, Switzerland; 28 November 1956

Zurich, Switzerland; 28 November 1956
Ganymed Statue, Brkliplatz, Zrich, Switzerland; 28 November 1956

Brkliplatz, Zrich, Switzerland; 28 November 1956
Uraniastrasse Bridge, Zurich, Switzerland; 28 November 1956

Great Minster Church, Zurich, Switzerland; 28 November 1956
Basrah Airport, Iraq; 29 November 1956

Singapore; 30 November 1956

Looking across towards the Fullerton Building, Singapore; 30 November 1956
The Fullerton Building (now a hotel) with the Fullerton Road bridge in front, Singapore; 30 November
1956
Cavenagh Bridge, Singapore; 30 November 1956

Posted in 1956 Cultural Exchange | Tagged 85 Northwood Road, Basra, Basrah
Airport, Brkliplatz,Calcutta, Cavenagh Bridge, Darwin, Dorothy Ellen Pidgeon
nee Lees, Fullerton Building, Fullerton Road bridge, Ganymed
Statue, Germany, Graham Richard Pidgeon, Great Minster
Church, Instanbul, Iraq,John Boyce, Karachi, Liverpool Street Station, Mascot
airport, Mt Ararat, Raffles Hotel, Rhine
River,Singapore, Switzerland, Sydney, Uraniastrasse Bridge, Zurich | Leave a
reply

27 Nov; Basel to Zurich,
Switzerland
Posted on November 27, 2014
Tue 27-Nov-56: Got train to Harwich, boat to Holland & down
the Rhine by Lorelei Express, arrived Zurich about 9pm
Basle, Switzerland
27 Nov 1956
My ultimate darling,
This is positively my last word on the whole of the matter. I am finally,
definitely, irrevocably, finished when this letter is completed.
I have just come out of the Georges Chirico station of Deutschland

Bsle.
The interminable station grey in its extended length, no one on it to

say or wave goodbye to whoever may have been committed, like me,
into the nights dark care. Overhead the great vaulted roof which in the
dismal gloom took on the quality of a cathedral without its soul, and as
the train pulled out, the greyness stretched into a memory of parrallel
lines which hoped to meet but never did & under the disappearing
single row of lights a solitary 21figure, an official of some sort, keeps
pace with the train until he too, fades off into the gloom of memory.
I am now changed from the comfortable Lorelei Express into the local
Swiss train to Zurich and the seats are wood and feel like concrete
under the behind. I am in proud and solitary splendor one dame
having just fled from the presence into a ladies non-smoker. All of
which is as it should be.
I assure you this is the evenings finale. It has been a long day & I think
I have just about said everything that has entered my head during the
first leg home. Do you still think being together has its delights? If so,
when? Now?
I dont know when God is going to stop looking after me. Im tired and
unshaven but I am very happy because people have been nice to me &
I am now lying down in the second bridal suite I have been in since I
left home. The first was at Grnwald near Munich, remember. I hope I
dream about you tonight. When I got to this Hotel Italia in Zurich,
Kings friend had gone the last 4 years. There was no room but
somehow someone moved & here I am in a perfect spot for a thing or
two, the way I am, three. Anyway darling, I am happy after an
exhausting day all told. And I will be on a plane towards you both
tomorrow. I know that I will be home before this letter but I cant help
wanting you now and the only way I can have you is by writing. As I
hear the footsteps padding off up the road, or street, I have not seen. I
think it becoming to say goodnight, my very dear, and completely,
honey chile.
Posted in 1956 Cultural Exchange | Tagged Basel, George Chirico Station, Hotel
Italia, King Watson,Lorelei, Switzerland, Zurich | Leave a reply

27 Nov; On the Lorelie Express past
Koblenz
On the Lorelie Express
past Koblenz.
27 Nov 56
Dearest,
While this train is slowing down I will explain that it is impossible to

write legibly when it is going full bat. It rocks around worse than a
Northwood Bus so do your best to decipher it all.
The Rhine! Not so impressive as one would want give away history
and its accompanying romance, leave away the towns, and you have
only a moderate river finding its own way to its level. But who can
leave aside its Romance. That is the Rhine, surely. Not the great
bombed out areas for the really dreary German grey flats & dwellings.
The inevitable bare trees ghosts of the past sit by the edge with their
feet in the continuity of time. Whats wrong with the Germans! They
look docile enough, but some mad concept is behind their being. Gas
chambers, mass destruction Valkyrie & the rest. It is all there
seemingly invisible, but I am sure just waiting for another prototype to
emerge.
Here I fall to sleep.
Sweet dreams my sweet one.

Sweet kisses
Later still on the Rhineland
You ought to think yourself something quite out of the box! Who else
gets their man never to rest without worrying about having his missus
near him or wanting her to be as well off as he? I know you are an old
dragon, a nagging wretch, a frigid image, a frustrated schoolmarm
but still unique & quite out of the box in all categories. In short, for the
practically last time I am telling the European air you have a man
who loves you take him as he is.
Still later. Its dark now, and I have just finished dinner or supper (pork
chop & 1/2 bottle very good light claret midday had steak &
mushrooms & chicken soup & by mistake 1/2 bt. white wine which was
very good too. Today, I am eating just what I want & its good for me
morally but not financially.
Outside the rails are slippery wet now & the puddles on the station
floor are put like pools of remembrance. I am at Offenbach and it all
gives me a feeling of the Man Who Watched the Trains Go By. There is a
more definite feeling of going somewhere into an unknown future when
you are on a train & it is dark & wet and you never can tell what will
eventuate like getting into an underground railway system & coming
up for air with a completely foreign & new born vision. The sheer
immediacy of never having seen moving life in its place its actually
suddenly confronting you as you walk out of the subway is an
extraordinary & unique experience. One that I would like to share with
you because you would depend on me to know where & why and what
and you could look freely because you know that somehow I would
find you your place in that little part of the world and that I would try
and look after you. I am writing this better because I am at the eating
table am more comfortable. I might even have some more claret
because I feel sentimental but hope I do not sound too disgustingly
so. I need your faith it is a great help.
Not long ago we passed nearby to Heidelberg. Romantic eh? The
Rhineland & its vineyards but the dull dreary German houses, stodgy
grey box like & inevitably the same. But the name and the
evocative images (which are always wrong & phoney) Listen London
Harwick Hook of Holland Rotterdam Kaldenkirchen Kln
Coblenz Mainz Carlsruhe Baden oos Freiburg come off like a
string of pearls dont they? Or a length of Heinz Spaghetti? My darling, I
would like you to be with me. Perhaps you would have had greater
pleasure than I out of seeing & sensing the different ways of man. I
know, fundamentally in my heart that I dont set a great deal of store
on this sightseeing that everything is really where it is right under
your own nose as it is for the people of Mainz or Brashov Venizia or
Paris or Brompton & from that matter, Paddington where I first learnt
the glories of the visible world. When I used to sit at the top floor
bedroom window & watch the sun die in glory over the roofs of the
tenements that frinhed the Brougham Rd near the Cross. When the
narrow alleys were full of winter smoke from the fireplaces of the poor.
And the gas lamp man would round his already completed task of
illuminating a tiny corner of the streets. And what of the bamboos, so
tall and strong enough for a doyen of monkeys, singing with locusts, &
ablaze with the gold & blue of the Christmas & Blue Monday beetles.
Yeah? I dont suppose anything has ever really penetrated me since I
was small and in a constant state of wonder. In the castor oil trees, on
the fences, smoking bamboo stalks, burrowing tunnels in the school
yard banks & reading goggle-eyed the naughty words in the latrines.
Please dont think I have retrogressed to a second childhood. It is so

dark & the train jigs too much for me to read. I find a relief in exploding
myself on paper I have done so little work none at all since I left
home. I am bottled up & probably need your warm clutch on my
creature member.
This really is going too far. If I keep this up, letters will be coming in for
a month or two after I get home.
God, when you look out of the window see cars & houses, you wonder
how anyone could settle down so far away from Northwood Rd. But I
guess it all depends on what is home your family, I think is home.
I have been thrown out the Spiesenkarten car because the Swiss
Customs men are due aboard. I am back now in the rickety carriage
with my sole & worldly European possessions.
I look forward to loving you both with spirit and flesh. I dont think we
make a bad pair together.
Your still loving (even at home) husband
Bill
Please come to me now.
Posted in 1956 Cultural Exchange | Tagged Germany, Heidelberg, Koblenz, Lorelei

Express, Northwood Bus, Offenbach, Paddington, Rhine
River, Rhineland, Switzwerland | Leave a reply

27 Nov; Lorelei Express
Andernach on the Rhine
Mon/Tue 26/27-Nov-56: Got train to Harwich, boat to Holland &
down the Rhine by Lorelei Express, arrived Zurich about 9pm
Possibly travelling through Cologne, Germany, aboard the Lorelei Express train travelling from
Holland to Zurich; 27 November 1956
Cologne Cathedral in the distance from aboard the Lorelei Express train travelling from Holland to
Zurich; 27 November 1956
The Rhine River from aboard the Lorelei Express train travelling from Holland to Zurich; 27
November 1956
Andernach on the Rhine

Tues. 27th Nov.
Darling,
I am just sitting here in the eating carriage & we are whizzing alongside
the Rhine. It is a marvellous day as a German said to me sehr
frhling (very spring). Sun and clouds & blue sky I just looked up and
saw my wrinkled old mug in the mirror & thought well, well, there is a
lucky man, and just look at him!
I am too lucky to last. But please keep your fingers crossed because it
is very nice to be lucky in love & most else!
XXX
Posted in 1956 Cultural Exchange | Tagged Andernach, Cologne, DSG, Lorelei
Express, Rhine River |Leave a reply

26 Nov; Aboard the S.S. Duke of
York for Holland
Mon/Tue 26/27-Nov-56: Got train to Harwich, boat to Holland &
down the Rhine by Lorelei Express, arrived Zurich about 9pm
Aboard the train from Liverpool Street Station, London to Harwich where Bill then took the S.S. Duke
of York to Hook of Holland; 26 November 1956
Aboard the train from Liverpool Street Station, London to Harwich where Bill then took the S.S. Duke
of York to Hook of Holland; 26 November 1956
On the S.S. Duke of York

Monday night in the bar for the sake of anywhere else to sit
26 Nov 56
Darling Dorothy,
A very filling day which is much better than sitting around wanting for
something to happen. I am at a disadvantage to say what I would like
because this place is bedlam & I cant move or even sit down anywhere
else.
I want to tell you that leaving a country in a ship is not what I like I
prefer to leave in a plane with all its possibilities of death but when
off, clean and away none of the terrible slimy wasling(?) stuff running
around the edges the darkness of the water and above all no one
because it is so slow away. One half hour & the lights get a bit dimmer
a red light in the middle of nowhere tolls a bell and the sea starts to
spray into your face & it is much colder & the stars (believe it or not)
are out just like in Australia. And I ask some gink of course he is a
Norwegian or something & he doesnt answer the question I ask but
points out a star & says North. Then I point out an obvious shape &
he says Orion. So now I know because I have often heard of it.
It is obvious most of the second class travellers are going to spend the
4-5 hours in the bar. Most of them speak Dutch possibly German. I
love you. I would like you down on the very windy deck getting covered
in sporay & holding my hand and not even saying much at all. Please
excuse this writing people are falling all over me & I am doing it on
my lap because I know it doesnt matter in the slightest for I will be
home with you before this arrives. But still. When you go down to the
letter box there will be a reminder of what I was thinking during my
passage home to you & Graham. I may as well finish the Odyssey &
you can ask me something about the news that arrives after I get
home.
This boat rocks plenty. Enough for you to say pull your imaginative
head in. So what? Here you have a perfectly amenable husband and
youre trying to straighten him up. This boat is rocking like the devil
and I get pushed around. Out of the blue a drunken Scotch dame starts
singing Here in my heart & immediately eveything becomes false &
phoney. Her companion sings I walk beside you in a sort of
Londonerry air tune.
There is a certain fascination about this, sweetheart, I wish I could take

you out into the biting air, that sharpens your whole existence. If I had
you with me it would be purposeful but now what is the point? I may
as well sit & observe this humanity & their particvular type of unity. I
never need you more than when I see the things that should be seeing
& I am alone. Not that it is fundamentally different from being in the
Lane Cove Hotel when they are giving off. The only difference is that
they are strangers & one is more tolerant.
Later (they closed the bar at 11 oclock).
I havent the foggiest what I have written but now, when I had found a
quiet little place in a corner, 3 half naked boys come around & ask me
where the women are? Wouldnt it? Apparently you can get one for 3
4 or (hours) or minutes? And yet I see the same types getting
brushed off by the score on the open deck.
I have had this ship. It throbs and rattles & is not worth thinking about.
I dont like the sea it sails in. It stinks, the North Sea is horrible grey,
has no ozone anywhere within a thousand miles of it. It is the
crumbiest end like the terrible poor red mullet I see in the shops. Like
very, very dead nanegai (nannygai). I dont like any part of Europeans.
Stinkers who like all the windows closed. Pommies who are no better
than they should be, Cockneys & Liverpool seamen, half-baked second
class travellers who have the effrontery to wear striped trousers &
black split arsed coats & homburg. Probably messengers acting fine for
a day. Open up their suitcase & what is in it but a bloody pillow &
another brief case, shit! 3 Germans are installed in the so called cabin.
Its alright I guess but I want to see what goes on.
Do you really know what I want? I tell you. It is to go up on the ship

deck with both of us in a decent coat to have the harsh salt in our
faces & for me to kiss it off your cold lips and to hold hands and not
say very much at all just to be there and together in the North Sea.
I have seen the constellation of Orion and I suppose the Dog Star &
Christ knows what (which I didnt recognise). I still want you with me,
because you are one who can be alone and undemonstrative with me.
Even if you felt that you needed companionship I would be only too
happy to break my own reticence & join with you in some unity of
well put your own words to it. I am apt to get too hypocritically
devotional.
This ship is the end shakes like a Pontiac over the horror stretch of
Lane Cove Rd.
You Dorothy, have got me now, I have become adjusted and that is a
silly word. I have become in love with what you have given & still offer
me. Irrespective of the knowledge that there are many more violences
to come (but do you really think that, after our long separation, that we
should be as violent as we have been. Surely if either one of us, should
have sense enough to suggest that there was a time when we were
both (and I believe this) practically, physically & mentally dying for
each other, that we shouldnt be able to say just the one word that
would fix us? (Either of us.) It is still better not to have had a terrible
sundering row than to consider its rather anti-climatic finish. I get so
buggared up about the relationship at times. Perhaps I like (sadistically)
the rows, which ultimately throw you back into my arms.
In some respects I am very much younger than the people of my own

age. They seem all so responsible, & in England quickly prone to a
sentimental fullness which is suspect in Sydney.
That sea this broken down old ship, the stinking sea the cold fresh,
air of the North Sea. Perhaps being apt has something to do with it
the badly fixed propeller thrashing beneath us.
Anyway, I still love you. Will you please come back to bed with me?
now? after you read this? You said you liked it, and I am sure you do.
I have had another go on the deck but still have a deep seated horror
of the slimy sea. I want no part of it at least alone, in my lifetime.
If you cant read this letter which I can forgive you can ask me what
it is all about because I, having written it, am about the only judge &
interpreter. But, you old & well established paragon of a wife, forgive
me for the need of you. Just come into me wherever I may be, and give
me a kiss because, I have needed you so very, very much.
Yours present
Bill.
Posted in 1956 Cultural Exchange | Tagged Harwich, Hook of Holland, Lane Cove
Hotel, Liverpool Street Station, Orion, S.S. Duke of York | Leave a reply

26 Nov; London, one last letter
Mon 26-Nov-56: Bought book on Picasso. Saw Royal Camden Portrait
exhibition. Had drinks with McNulty, Gladwynn & Noel Monks at Press
Club.
In a London bar in Soho
Monday-midday
26 Nov 56
Dearest thingummy girl,
Received your last two letters all in good time this morning-after I had
taken my two bags down to the luggage department at Liverpool Street
station. I was wandering about the city end-and while passing the great
St Pauls Cathedral, I settled into your letters. Ill have you know they
bucked me up considerably-it is quite remarkable how firm I felt about
them all. There was not a trace of softness in my make up-my very
being hardened when I contemplated the situation that confronts me
on my return. You can rest assured that I will handle the matter
ruthlessly and expediently. After the first encounter with the problem, I
hope to negotiate it with equal firmness, but perhaps, with more
subtlety and grace. I hope you will find my attitude to it all, meets with
your approval, and that we can continue the negotiations together-two
wards a successful conclusion-although I do not think we should show
any willingness to finalise the issue for some considerable time. Indeed
I rather fancy the idea of greatly prolonged negotiations-gives us a
chance to play the one against the other. Taken all in all, I am very
much in favour of firmness, combined with fluidity.
I thank you for the information on how my advances are likely to be

received.
Have been to a few shops to find Partos bras and there is not a great
deal about-style 283 is finished in any case-nevertheless bought the
only three styles they had-cheap enough 16/-, 12/, 11/3 or something
like that.
Later about 4 p.m. Am back at Consol Press office to go out and have a
drink with McNulty. Spent some time at a Royal Academy exhibition of
800 English portraits from early times till now. Went back to Hotel to
get odds and ends and find I am too late to have another look at the
National Gallery. Anyway I too tired to worry about seeing more
godamm pictures. In another three hours Ill be on my way home-and
very happy about it-really want to see you both and have a rest for a
few days. I hope you get this letter on Saturday instead of Friday
afternoon. I want to keep you hot and strong for my homecoming. God
bless you and Graham and Trellie.
Your very loving and homecoming husband and father
Bill.
Posted in 1956 Cultural Exchange | Tagged Clarence Sydney McNulty, Clarrie

McNulty, Consolidated Press office, Gladwynn, Liverpool Street
Station, London, Noel Monks, Partos bras style 283, Picasso,Press Club, Royal
Academy Exhibition, Royal Camden Portrait Exhibition, Soho | Leave a reply

25 Nov; London, saw Marian
Anderson at Royal Festival Hall
Sun 25-Nov-56: Walked along south Embankment saw end of service
in Abbey. With Marian Anderson, Jean Ure at Royal Festival Hall
25 Nov 56
London Sun 8:30 p.m.
Dearest wife,
How nice to sit down with you again-even though it be only with an
inadequate letter. How little a substitute for the real thing, when this
time next Sunday night, I will be (God willing) with you and Graham
incomplete and satisfying reality-slightly gorged with good food and
drink and completely overflowing with the wonderful serenity of being
in my own home and with my own, very, very, exclusively, my own
people. I hope I handle this wonderful reunion, with the grace it
deserves, and that we all will find nothing discordant in the whole day
and the whole wonderful night. I am frantic to be there-now!
This day began very smoothly for me. Perhaps because I was relaxed
and really didnt care much what it brought. I rang an earnest English
lass who teaches Romanian here (I met her in Bucharest with John St
John) and made arrangements to meet her this afternoon for a look
around. Being my last lingering look so to speak. Anyway after looking
at The Times I noticed Marian Anderson was giving a farewell concert
at 3 p.m. at theRoyal Festival Hall. So I decided Id stroll peacefully over
the Hungerford Bridge and see if I could get some tickets. Got a couple
of 10 bobbers. The Thames almost like Paris this morning-mild and
misty enough to etherealise the fine north side buildings-and the trees
lining the embankment reminiscent of those alongside the Seine. A
limpid autumn, though practically sunless, morning. After getting the
tickets I idly watched the seagulls in their leisurely Sabbath diversions-
their graceful landings-fine, and abrupt take offs into the wind, then
veering in side slips like fighter planes over the body of the river-poised
almost motionless-ray and white, the breathless curving of their wings
fluting through the air-and turning into the smoothest glides. Beautiful,
unspoken poetry, movements carved in air, and left engraved in the
mind. Relaxing-and in a sort of inverted way, exciting just because one
so seldom spends that available and rewarding time. A further
sauntering taking me past the huge Italian Renaissance style county
council buildings with steps running down onto the Thames and looking
like some miss placed and darkened Doges Palace. Across Westminster
Bridge past the Houses of Parliament, past Westminster Abbey, when
something made me retrace my steps and enter while the morning
service was on. Then a wonderful choral singing-filling the ancient walls
with sound so that is seemed to come out of the very pores of the
stones. The two sections of the choir throwing back the themes one to
the other-and silvery and sombre voices weaving a pattern throughout
the whole. With the music of the goals and the almost visible design of
this most magnificent singing I felt the day could hardly bring more or
comparable delight. And it didnt.
Having some little time to spend until I met this Jean Ure (who was
some relative, cousin, or niece of Syd Ure Smith) I thought Id try some
draught Guinness at a pub called the Villiers, pubs being open too on
Sunday here. Found the stout very good and settle down with my paper
alongside a dame on a bench. She was as Irish as they came and
started talking to me. Asked me if Id have a drink with her-naturally I
had reversed the salutation and buy her drink. Then she up and shes
sorry she couldnt buy me one she was short. Well I bought another
and then she tried to touch me for lunch-no! Then 2/- no. I got up and
changed 2/- and gave her 1/-. Fortunately that got rid of her-but sadly
dented my benignity.
Walked back over the Thames and waited 20 minutes for this dame,
who is un-humorously earnest about socialist good works. I dont know
whether it was my disintegrating ecstasy or the workings of the
Guinness but I enjoyed the show less than my walk across the bridge
back to meet the girl. The Thames still looking fine, fitful sunlight and
through the pearly atmosphere a single gleam of gold, high keyed-from
the distant dome of St Pauls, and behind me the occasional train
chuffing over the bridge, its bellowing is fading off into the sounds of
church bells somewhere in the south.
I am not very keen on these contralto sort of voices and they dont
seem eminently suitable for Mozart to me. But, she really was
magnificent in the Negro spirituals. Perhaps because they were
simpler, and I could follow the theme and emotion better, I went from
them in a big way. So did the rest of the house-she got a wonderful
reception from the enormous crowd present.
The Royal Festival Hall, built in 1951, very modern, and quoting my
guidebook a concert hall which such great conductors as Toscanini
have declared the finest in the world. The exterior has met with some
criticism, but the acoustics and amenities, the planning and the decor
of the interior have received almost universal praise. This could hardly
be disputed-the exterior is a cross between a factory and a hangar but
the interior is quite fabulously successful in appearance and function.
Huge foyer with glass walls and all round vision, alongside, are found
bars, restaurants overlooking the Thames, the lower coffee lounge and
cafeteria-fine slick glass and wood stairways and an enormous concert
hall-lined below with padded red leatherette, above on the second
flight with a well designed fabric. Fine acoustically waved roof, studded
with many lamps like stars. You would have loved it-what a pity.
Anyway, we had a light tea and I got back here about eight. Well
content with the day, and now about to give up the good fight.
Have got the radiator on trying to dry out a shirt and handkerchiefs as I
want to get all my luggage down to Liverpool Street station early so
that I can get back to the city and have a quick look at the Royal
Academy and a final run through the National Gallery.
Am getting restless about my return. Once I get moving-well, I should

be something or other-I dont know-have given up thinking.
Much love, my very dear one.
Monday morning 8 a.m. [26 Nov 56]
well, this is it, sweetie, Im about to take my first tottering steps on the
homeward journey. I packed and everything is beautifully squashed
down for five days-God help this all screamed the new suit, dressing
down, and female odds and ends. Nothing to be done about that-but
forward into the night! Whoops Dearie-Im practically there-get yourself
into trim-cleanse the fatted duck, pat Graham and Trellie-Im on the
way!
Love, love, lovey, from your bird on the wing Bill.
XXXXXX SAOH for all!
XXXXXX SAOH for all!

Posted in 1956 Cultural Exchange | Tagged Embankment, Houses of
Parliament, Jean Ure, John St John, London, Marian Anderson, Romania, Royal
Festival Hall, St Paul's Cathedral, Sydney Ure Smith,Thames River, The
Times, Villiers hotel, Westminster Abbey, Westminster Bridge | Leave a reply

24 Nov; London, another look in at
the Tate
Sat 24-Nov-56: Bought ticket to Zurich sent off books to self & S. Rotaru. Tate
Gallery in afternoon.
Sat 24 of Nov 56
th
London
Sweetheart,
Oh girl, oh girl, oh boy! Is is good is sit down? Have had it again!
Bustled round Oxford St and Piccadilly trying to buy some string, get books all
cleared away-went to Thomas Cooks and got my ticket to Zrich. Pretty near all
set-must go through all the bits and pieces of paper etc.-to see what I can clear
out to make space and save weight. There seems a lot of fiddly little things I want
to arrive back with to save all the filthy delay of surface post. Superficial odds and
ends-just to have something to show whats been doing. Oh-perhaps fell finish up
getting posted like the rest of the stuff.
Went to the Tate Gallery after a few Guinness and sandwiches and spent the best
part of three hours there, and left completely wrung out. It is very difficult to take
all these pictures in-so many one has seen reproductions of. And rarely do the
reproductions have the soft and convincing atmosphere, or colour relation, that is
inherent in the originals. Somehow they always harden up and become more
aggressive, more blatantly colourful than the paintings from which they were
taken. Van Goghs sunflowers have so much more vitality and tenderness. Saw
the original of that painting in our hall too, incidentally. A couple ofGauguin,
much more impressive in reality. Dozens and dozens of things youd recognise, I
have seen. It gets tiresome. Ill get it back stop all very much to the good I think,
because you get the feeling youd like to experiment and get at it a bit yourself.
But apart from making some contact with Ampol (if the commission is still
available) I want to sit down for a couple of days. I havent done so, except in a
plane, or a train, all whilst eating, or writing, since I got off at Rome. I warn you, I
am only 11 stone with sports coat, jumper, and overcoat on. Anyhow I am sure
you will spoil me-and fatten me up for the Xmas killing. I love you.
Talking of Xmas-Regent St and Oxford have now got all Xmas trees, coloured
lights, and Father Xmas out, and the place is quite bright, but bloody cold. It
makes me glad that Xmas will be at home with my highly specialised family-would
be the very end to get stuck here (or anywhere else) alone when all the spirit is
building up, and the half crowns are jingling in your pocket. A very great number
of 2/6 pieces here-more than florins. Never quite sure whether I am planking
down 2/6 or 2/-. In any case they hardly last long enough to notice. Grog is a
colossal price over here-Sherry 3/- glass, claret 2/6 small glass, Scotch 2/6 or
2/9, gin and tonic 2/4 or 2/10. 1/3 bottle (they make beer in little bottles like the
tiny Guinness Stout you might have seen) beer 1/1 -stout 1/5 1/6 equivalent to
about 3 glass to bottle. Consequently everybody is very sober over here.
Im not very verbose tonight but want, very much, for you both to get a letter are
day practically up till the day before I arrive-that way you will not be stamping
about the unpruned rose bushes wondering what has happened to your errant
(hah! hah! Thats a laugh) husband. I should be in bed with you before you finish
reading my last note-and you had, very definitely, be prepared to like it.
Enough for now, Ill see if I can squeeze a number drop out of this pen in the
morning, when the alleged daylight arrives. And with that I give you another
consignment of good old home spun love. Kiss, kiss, SAOH.
Sunday morning [25 Nov 56]. Woke early, about 4:30-and read till 5:30-thought Id
give Morphens another visit and stayed with him till 8 a.m. when breakfast
brought me to. I am about to wash doesnt handkerchiefs, one day for the way
home-have a horrible pile of dirty ones. Roleys place was the only opportunity I
have had to boil them up and iron them. Nevertheless we manage along and I
hope to get home reasonably clean. Ill diagnose my dirty stuff when you are not
looking. It has been raining during the night which seems all to the good as it is
now warmer and not so foggy. This is my second last letter as after tomorrow
nothing can beat me bringing personal tidings of joy and affection for my two very
dear people. I send you a great deal of love darling, and for Graham a great
anxiety to see how he has grown-and how long, if not taller, young Trellie has
grown. Love, love and more love from your very close at hand husband,
Bill.

1956 Romanian Journal

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1956 Romanian Journal

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Pidgeon Post

An insight into the life of

Weps 1956 Romanian adventure;

Two charming young ladies met me on arrival from Australia at

Is it possible for your department to forward these remembered friends

To the bossy little unabashed girl who loved artists.

You will not remember my unexpressed enjoyment of a picnic lunch by

Can you remember (no, it was meaningless work for you) as I do in

The remembrance of your Madonna almond eyes dissolved all the

You must remember photographs I sent you, the magnificent church at

An excess of vino has occasioned all these sentimental reminiscences.

Posted in 1956 Cultural Exchange | Tagged Bra?ov, Bucharest, Institutul Roman

Weps 1956 Romanian adventure;

Republica Populara Romina

PART ONE AN ARTISTS IMPRESSIONS

The airfield boundaries simmered and jingled in a brown haze of

A re-emergence of summer had stretched right back over Europe-

Beneath the photographically watchful eyes of Stalin and Gheorghiu

Sleek, efficient Mrs Suteu, responsible for the care of English-speaking

Their enthusiasm is tremendous, and is apparently projected

Whole suburb-the 23 August suburb, brought into being as a

celebration of the National Liberation Day (August 23 is the national

themselves to soccer, high jumps and sundry other death-defying

belches fourth flame for the future.

An enormous bowl, bulldozed out of the ground; a concrete saucer

1956. Daily production also includes 50,000 magazines and 80,000 to

Massive buildings, showpieces, impressive portents of the future they

Museums, art galleries, Pioneers palaces, Houses of Creation-

It was very pleasant to be driven 200 miles or more up country. Ute,

In Orasul Stalin dear Ute, in our absence, had squeezed a mudguard,

Transylvania-I suppose everybody has licked their lips in Ruritanian

Transylvania-musical comedy-the Gypsy Baron and all that, perhaps

Compactly built villages reflect the native love of colour. Long

The small flock of bleating animals, three belonging to one of the

The music which is collected by the Folklore Institute could nominally

1. Cantice Batrineste historical or legendary ballads

1. Batuta an ancient national dance performed by men

Longing is the grand theme. An unknown author says, Longing is the

There now exists a considerable number of popular folk music

This is not intellectual music. The innumerable dances and laments

Presentation of both these works was on spectacular and traditional

Confronted with a lavish menu, and surrounded by gargantuan eaters,

I have long wondered at the curious differences in prices on the menu.

Taking the Lei as a unit we get the following comparisons:

Speaking of prices, I suppose everyone likes to know what people

Suit 500 1000 ready-made frock 120 230

Overcoat 400 800 Costume 400

Shirt 80 high-heeled shoes 380

Tie 20 60 flat shoes 140

Hat 60 costume jewellery 20 90

Shoes 140 400

Potatoes (kilogram) 0.65 Lei

Cabbage (about 2 pounds) 1 Lei

Butter (kilo) 18 Lei

Pork (kilo) 10 Lei

Cognac (bot) 90 Lei

Vodka (bot) 22 Lei

Tzuica (bot) 31 Lei

Beer (bot) 8 Lei

Bicycle 860 Lei

Motorbike (imported) 16,000 Lei

(FOOTNOTE on the foreign exchange market the Lei is held at about

As an artist I was primarily interested in the conditions and functions of

As a unit of promulgation of socialist consciousness he has special