Roundabout

Mom THE CHEF of 'The Bear' at Esher headed the

queue,, waiting outside the Law Courts for Liberace v. Cassandra.

He had been there since six in the morning, and sat cheer- Behind him, average age and bpst measurement thirty-eight, surged the Liberace Fan Club. One had risen at 3 a.m.; another, a pale girl in pink, had come all the way from Rhyl, North Wales; all wore outward and visible signs of their state. One woman, whose royal blue jersey suit was already adorned with a few hundred sequins, wore a diamantd piano, a fan-club button and a tinted picture of George and Liberace together. Their leader, a cheerful matron in a low-cut dress with

a portrait hanging at the top of her cleavage, marshalled them proudly. 'Most of the fans go twice nightly to all his shows when he's over here.

I keep the club going because we've had 'no tele-

vision of him for quite a while; we have to sort of wait. I know Liberace and his mother---1 worked with them at the Savoy on his 10,000 fan letters in 1956. They're so nice—just like you and

The lucky thirteen were shepherded up the stairs into the courts. and a few remained on the pave- ment to start a welcoming crowd for the master's arrival. Two large stoneworkers, thick arms folded across their chests, and one small one in a loud check shirt, watched the gathering of the fans with amusement, 'We saw him on TV last night,' said the largest—'he'd toned it dowh a bit, if you

ask me. Didn't mention Mum and George--didn't even move his eyes. My wife doesn't like him."All these fans are nut cases, anyway,' said the second. 'YoU ask them in two years about Liberace- they'll have forgotten who he is.'

But the small one was tolerant. 'Well, they like him-1 like dog racing. Maybe they've no opinion of dog racing.' 'All these attacks.' said a fierce blonde in brown. 'It's all the men. Jealousy, I call it.'

The crowd thickened, and got pushed back by a young policeman. 'No. 1 wasn't here last week —thank God.' he said. 'How many of them will swoon, 1 wonder?'

A Law Courts messenger poised delicately on one foot, arms outstretched, but the eight photo- graphers, their faces blank as lenses, refused to play. The messenger was solid for Liberace. 'Defi- nitely a mother's boy,' he said. 'All that other talk

is just nonsense.' Suddenly a car door opened, there was a flash of kingfisher colour, and a figure resplendent in green and yellow and a bright straw hat descended. Not Liberace. but the Daily Tele- graph shipping correspondent--'l'm a witness, old boy,' he said, punching a photographer in the chest. •

When Liberace did arrive he wore a quiet, dark auit with quiet, dark hair. He smiled his way past

his public, and they yearned after him. 'Oh what a lovely smile !"He looks almost shy, doesn't he?' 'He's so friendly,' And three women who had come from Scotland turned away with an ecstatic sigh : 'It's made our holiday.'

Porn THE BANNER WAS HOME-MADE 01.1t of part of a cardboard box and some wooden struts. On one side red lettering said 'No return to the Thirties,' and on the other in printed script was an adver- tisement for the GEC.

High and brightly coloured, the huge lodge banners billowed and gleamed in the sunshine, supported by teams, held steady with guide ropes. Cambrian lodge's, slogan was 'Educate, Organise, Agitate", Penallta took the idea on a bit : 'Educate, Organise, Control.' Less direct in its thinking, the combined Mountain Ash and Penrhiwceiber lodge proclaimed that 'Knowledge is Power.' Bargoed Surface lodge stood for Peace and Prosperity and on its scarlet banner was a picture of a wholesome yOung family—fair-haired children, clear-eyed parents—who could have come from onetif those building-society advertisements about the com- parative serenity of home ownership. Arthur Horner smiled vacuously from the Mardy lodge banner ('Peace, Forward to Socialism'). Alongside him was a picture of Charlie Coch Jones.

The procession—through Cardiff to Sophia Gardens for the miners' annual gala—had started Out briskly through. the resplendent civic centre, right on time. 'Will the remainder of the Windsor

Colliery band please come by this van?' asked the loudspeaker, 'and the remainder of the Abertridwr lodge. . . . No one has any fixed position. Those who are late, get in at the back.'

Nye was late but he got in at the front, his hair as bright as silver paint. One woman who waved and shouted to him from the pavement, and was gravely acknowledged, said: 'Isn't he red, Lyn? It's too much for one man.' Then, pale as plaster herself, she put some kind of arm lock on her small grandson who kept trying to run away: 'His mother was the same. Terrified of bands.' On a balcony on top of a record shop a nice-looking girl in a wide skirt was watching, and the Ogmore Valley lodges were lucky to be held up there for a while.

Cardiff is always a bit suspicious of valley people in quantity. It's a known fact, they say, that the men urinate in shop doorways after inter- national matches, win or lose. The locals lined-the main streets, but there was not much cheering as the thousands of navy and brown and blue suits went by. Nye, in a smooth, summery grey one, looked reproachful. Generally the marching was admirably unmilitary and shambling, though a couple of the bigger bands swaggered like army cadets. all backbone and dressing. (`They'd march against China on their own as long as someone blew a bit of brass.') In genteelly welcoming the miners and their families at Sophia Gardens the Lord Mayor of Cardiff, a woman, almost made the mistake of calling them ladies and gentlemen. She remem- bered her brief and corrected herself quickly : 'Friends,' she said. She hoped that 'When you wake up in the morning you'll say, "Yes, it was worth while."' In the beer tent they were hoping the same.