The Guardian from London, Greater London, England • 21

THE GUARDIAN Saturday June 2 1990 ARTS. PERSONAL 21 The Crucible was written when America was hunting communists. Nicholas de Jongh reports on the National's cool revival of a play that still ought to burn Body heat of the Puritans Like me, like my lips Nancy Banks-Smith SINCE witch-hunting and scapc-goating remain two of mankind's most famous blood sports, with the weak, the unpopular and the vulnerable as the usual victims, Arthur Miller's The Crucible is perpetually of our time. Although the play is set in late 17th century New England, where a troupe of hysteric girls are the direct cause of a witchhunt which ends in hangings and ruined lives, its heart is in early 1950s. For it was in that cold-war phase of anxiety when Senator Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee persuaded the country into a witch-hunt of his own against communists and communist sympathisers.

The play, the best by this otherwise overrated playwright, therefore, works through an apt forceful analogy between the America of the 1690s and a kind of these emphases that Davies fails to discover. The slightly torpid production lacks a developed and developing emotional environment. Its climate is lucid but medium-cool. And Peter Salem's ghostly fluttering music seems both extraneous and intrusive. At least William Dudley's meticulously elaborate stageing strives for a sense of New England by providing a series of fresh wood domestic interiors, with a two tier wooden framework for the final court scenes, which rise up upon the revolving stage.

But any production depends firstly upon a secret sexual network, of actual and desired associations, upon young Abigail Williams, the servant girl to whom the unhappily married John Proctor briefly succumbed, Mary Warren the latest serving girl and on John's wretched wife Elizabeth. The play then brings this stirred eroticism to the fatal blaze in double focus and with double affect. It is also one of the modern theatre's most powerful examples of humanism triumphant: the final scene, when the adulterous John Proctor goes to the gallows rather than affirm his belief in the potency of witches raises a great theatrical candle for those who put conscience before state or religious uniformity. In such circumstances I was disappointed to come away so cool from Howard Davies's revival, the first of two National productions which will mark Miller's 75th birthday. Laurence Olivier's definitive Old Vic production 25 years ago captured the play's sense of simmering hysteria and accumulated guilts, of a repressed sexuality in a high Puritan environment at last flaring up in the fires of accusation and apparent possession, of a community and even families set against each other.

It is just the Court room where Deputy Governor Danforth calmly puts the rule of law to such terrible use. Paul Shelley's preposterously hysterical Judge ruins the sense of judicial gravity and dispassion gradually subverted. And eroticism fizzles here. Clare Holman's Abigail, pert and spirited and her troop of possessed young girls do not impart sufficent sexual undercurrents or fervent emotionalism. And though Tom Wilkinson's John Proctor acquires a true disshevelled desperation, vehemently fine in his late confession of lechery it is Zoe Wanamaker as his racked, wrenched wife physically altered by grief who raises the play's temperature.

It is the peripheral citizenry, Michael Bryant's brilliantly stolid example of Purtain self assurance and Elizabeth Bradley's doomed old matriarch, who bring the witch-hunt into shocking close up. things like a sore thumb, not always for the better Frank is too big for that." I was highly entertained by the reason Howerd himself advanced for leaving Up Pompeii: "I didn't want to get typecast as a Roman slave." He seemed perfectly serious but then he rarely smiles. If that often. "Nearly all comics are extremely miserable in real life," said Michael Winner. "They are tormented, iras-kible." (Ir-what?) "Very nice people but deeply sensitive and not basically jolly.

He's a very nice chap but not the chap to go to if you want a laugh." Winner conversely is all chortles. The Frankie Howerd Story was punctuated with evocative shots of him roaming about in unpopulated places learning his lines. A West Country field with occasional cows a windy, out-of-season beach. Max By-graves said when they were touring, Howerd used to sit in cemeteries after the show and go through his act. The oo-ah and mad cackle must have given several citizens a nasty turn.

You hardly think of him having lines at all but he buys the best. Johnny Speight, another scriptwriter, spoke touchingly of great comics and he's known a few. "I don't think they understand how good they are. They never see themselves. They look in the mirror when they are shaving and they see the face that was treated as nothing and that same face is still there.

They still see this arse-out-of-his-trousers little guy they used to be." And so, wearing his slept-in face, Howerd went past the sign that said No Smoking And Glasses Beyond This Point and hesitated a second and strode onstage. Beyond this point you are on your own. "Her pupils are fixed and dilated! She is in profound coma!" And who would blame the child? Not I for one. In Island Son (LWT) Richard Chamberlain resurfaces after some 30 years as yet another deeply caring doctor. This time, for the man's no fool, in Hawaii.

This leads to some rather obscure Hawaiian chat I make cow-pee. Help me peel the and mysticism you see a bird flying in the sky and then you no longer see the bird, the bird is still Sweet enough to strip the enamel off your teeth. Brush well after watching. A TELEVISION critic now gloriously transmuted into an editor, met Frankie Howerd in a sauna. No, wait, missus.

Don't laugh, no. That's not the funnv bit. I ll tell you as he told it to me. "What do you do?" Frankie Howerd asked. "Well at the moment I'm reviewing television for the Times." "Ah" he said, staring hard "You're not that Nancy Banks-Smith? She doesn't like me." That is hilarious and cruel.

Cru-el. Was it something I said? Of course you have to tiptoe a bit round the greatly gifted. There is the cautionary tale of Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fon-tanne, blazing theatrical stars in their day, testing for pictures. Alfred refused to watch I the screen test so Lynn reported oacK. uarung; sue said, "the camera does such remarkable 'things you don't seem to have any lips but you looked my darling, absolutely marvellous.

So handsome and striking! You have a whole new career in front of you. Whereas Disaster! I looked like an old hag." Lunt nodded thoughtfully. "No lips, eh?" he said. Had I suggested that the hair looked as if it was unravelling? Did I ask the name of his tailor, so I could avoid him? I remember saying long ago he was the greatest comic we never had. I bet that was it.

On TV he sometimes seemed like a big fish in the shallow end, thrashing and gasping. In Arena's The Frankie Howerd Story (BBC 2) Eric Sykes, who wrote for him, described the big-fishiness of the man in a panegyric so intense it was positively cross. "Frank is an abstract and surrealist person. He was much too good for Up Pompeii and much too big for that screen. When he's surreal and tells you something like he's got to get this tape recording of an eagle laying an egg and gets his egg getting uniform from Cecil Gee's and and it's surrealistic He's not an ordinary actor.

He stands out of Carry On at the National douglas jeffery Festival Hall Meirion Bowen BBC Welsh SO IT'S high time the BBC and South Bank publicity departments did something for the BBC orchestras that perform at the Festival Hall so often to poor sized audiences. Here the BBC Welsh Symphony Orchestra played an attractive and popular programme to an unbelievably small band of listeners. Musicians like these deserve better. Although not quite as accustomed to the dry Festival Hall acoustic as they might be (St David's Hall, Cardiff, is far kinder to them), the BBC Welsh met the challenge of such clinical exposure with great security and aplomb. They consistently offered firm attack and ensemble and an abundance of fine solos.

Woodwind, especially, sparkled in the overture to Rossini's opera Semiramide one of the most deceptively straightforward-sounding, yet testing pieces in the repertoire. Under Richard Hickox, the playing of tutti sections was a bit stolid: the steady build-up towards big climaxes, for which this composer (once nicknamed Monsieur Crescendo) became famous, was not quite electrifying. Serving her master: Julia Ford of retaining the other. The two qualities were not always there at the same time on this occasion, either, at the end of the Polish Chamber Orchestra's latest tour of Britain. But the very beginning of the concert, an immediately brilliant and unfailingly captivating performance of Hoist's St Paul's Suite, proved first that the PCO can do it and then had a large audience eagerly anticipating the next example.

It was not, unfortunately, to be found in Elgar's Introduction and Allegro, the heated scoring of which caused the usual problems (if on a smaller scale), and which the PCO probably shouldn't have been playing anway. An ensemble based on three cellos and one double bass cannot apply the dramatic impact or supply the essential distinction between lonely solo voices and the massed sound of the rest. Besides, while lightly articulated briskness is refreshing in the St Paul's Suite, lin BobCann Yesterday's weather Around the world (Luncrvtima reports) Obituary: Bill Sowerbutts More sower than sour Dartmoor steps for pixie band Around Britain in (day) .52 12 15 Ratn .16 12 20 Shwrs pm 06 14 19 Rain pm 02 12 18 Showers Ot 15 21 Rain pm .03 16 23 Rain pm 02 13 10 Shwrs pm 13 13 18 Ram pm 12 23 Cloudy 03 13 21 Rain pm 02 13 17 Cloudy 21 13 IB Showers 08 12 20 Rain pm .19 11 21 Thunder pm 01 14 21 Ram pm 15 12 24 Rain pm 11 25 Bright am 13 19 Bright am 14 20 Bright am 14 24 Dull 11 22 Sunny am 12 13 19 Thunder pm 01 12 21 Thunder pm ,11 13 19 Thunder pm 07 10 18 Thunder pm 8 18 Thunder pm 12 17 Thunder pm Manchester. Newcastle EAST COAST Tynomnnth Scarborough Cleelhorpea Skegness SOUTH COAST Folkcsiono Hastings Easlbourno-, Brighton Worthing Litllchamplon Bognor Regis Havhnq Island iz is ucuoy Soutfrsea. Rydo 28 12 19 Cloudy 2S 12 21 Cloudy Drive, "upscale Belinda Carlisle is a bluestocking pop star who leaves no unpleasant after-taste.

The trouble with this Wembley appearance was that she left almost no impression at all. Belinda was a member of the Go-Gos, the apparently pure and innocent all-girl band who eventually disintegrated in a fog of substance abuse and debt. Henceforth, she has applied herself to building a clear-eyed, clean-cut solo career. Although she doesn't say much to the audience, there is a sub-text of self-regard about Belinda's act. It's a continuation of the themes from her videos and marketing campaigns, which tend to soft-focus on a golden-tinted Belinda frolicking on California beaches, or simply zoom in on her "I feel good about myself' grin and copious hectares of cleavage.

On stage, while her guitarist (resplendent in purple crushed-velvet jacket) ratchets away at another solo, Belinda is prone to swaying sensually, perhaps with an arm curved over her head as if in a free-movement class. She is probably the kind of person who forces you to dance with her at parties to make her look better. Costume changes are deftly handled, delivering a succession of new-look Belindas wearing something lower-cut, tighter and Bill Sowerbutts in 1983 renamed Gardeners' Question Time. For the next 30 years, regularly at two o'clock each Sunday, Bill with true Lancastrian homespun humour and laconic wit gave sound practical advice on gardening matters to a national audience of well over a million people; counsel based always on his own practical experience. The greatest compli- Birthdays Today: Algernon Asprey, artist, designer, 78; Lord Boyd-Carpenter, former Conservative minister, 82; Constanttne, ex-King of Greece, 50; Alan Do-bie, actor, 58; Mark Elder, music director, English National Opera, and Music Director, Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, USA, 43; Marvin Hamlisch, composer, 46; Mr Justice Jupp, 73; Stacey Keach, actor, 49; Sally Keller-man, actress, 53; Peter Morrison, Minister of State for Energy, 46; David Mudd MP, 57; Ernie Royal, jazz trumpeter, 69; Lord Justice Slade, 63; Johnny Speight, writer, 70; Craig Stadler, golfer, 37; David Sumberg MP, 49; Charlie Watts, rock drummer, 49.

Tomorrow: Philip Attenbor-ough, publisher, chairman, Deaths Eric Barker, 78, prolific star of radio and films, known for his catchphrase "Steady, Barker." A top BBC radio comedian in the 1940s, he was in shows like Merry Go-Round, Howdy Folks, and later his own television series. The Boulting Brothers more glittery. Her music is tightly-arranged adult pop, with additional dancing and harmonies from a couple of girl-extras, and a touch of Cal-kitsch in the form of a cellist. La Luna was a Spanishy shuffle, Vision Of You was tender and sentimental (and would have been more so without the earth-moving drums), Shades Of Michelangelo a meditation on art, life and, I daresay, mortality. But having delivered the better-known Leave A Light On For Me and Heaven Is A Place On Earth, Belinda boldly broke cover to plug the Animal Aid organisation, collecting in the foyers, and went so far as to urge a boycott of L'Oreal, who continue to test their products on animals.

This was by far the most memorable part of the proceedings, which otherwise were akin to a mirage. QEH Gerald Larner Polish CO TECHNICAL precision and expressive spontaneity are not often found together, even in the most expert of chamber orchestras: the repetitive effort involved in securing the one tends to reduce the likelihood PHOTOGRAPH: DENIS THORPE ment I can pay him would be this: Bill Sowerbutts was a thoroughgoing professional both as a gardener and broadcaster. He will be mourned by all who knew or heard him. Geoff ray Smith Bill Sowerbutts born 1911; died May 28, 1990. Hodder and Stoughton, 54; Lord Brandon of Oakbrook, Lord of Appeal, 70; Patrick Cargill, actor, 72; Tony Curtis, actor, 65; Johnny Coles, jazz trumpeter, 64; William Douglas-Home, playwright, 78; David Evennett MP, 41; Raoul Franklin, Vice-Chancellor and Professor of Plasma Physics and Technology, City University, London, 55; Allen Ginsberg, poet, 64; Anita Harris, singer, 48; Hale Irwin, golfer, 45; Michael Jaffe, Director, Fitzwilliam Museum and Professor of the History of Western Art, Cambridge, who retires in September, 67; Colin Meads, former All Black rugby footballer, 54; Suzi Quatro, singer, 40; Dakota Staton, singer, 58; Wilfred Thesiger, explorer, author, 80.

introduced him to films, including two St Trinian's and three Carry On movies, and he appeared with Goldie Hawn in There's a Girl in My Soup. Wrote much of his own material, three novels and an autobiography. Accompanying Howard Shelley in Gershwin's Piano Concerto, the orchestra coped easily with the fast cross rhythms of the Charleston-inspired first movement, but the slower reflective episodes also sounded heartfelt. Shelley himself was convincing above all in the restless variations of pace that occur in the bluesy middle movement, where the solos for trumpet and other wind players were also lovingly realised. But it was in Walton's First Symphony that this orchestra was really on display.

Helped by Hickox' mature, unhurried approach, they gauged accurately the dynamic levels needed, so that Walton's brassy rhetoric rarely seemed excessive. Best of all was the slow movement, a well knit piece in its own right, here delivered with a deliberate, yet ultimately searing intensity. Wembley Adam Sweeting Belinda Carlisle THE name gives it away. "Belinda It says: WASP, banking, mansions with an ocean view, shopping on Rodeo his prime interests and he continued playing until quite recently. I understand that he spent the last evening of his life watching the PGA Championship from Wentworth on television.

Then there was a love of music, somehow at odds, or so it seemed, with the hard, uncompromising Lancashire-businessman facade presented to the world at large. This hobby began with piano lessons taken, as he described it, virtually at pistol point in the 1920s. At one stage, his ambition was to become a journalist until fate took a hand. When he was 16 his father died and journalistic aspirations had to be set aside. He was needed at home to help on the smallholding.

The newspaper world's loss was horticulture's gain. In 1947 he made his first broadcast as one of the experts taking part in the wireless programme. How Does Your Garden soon independence party with his father (Dao Onn Jaafer). But, after independence in 1957 he took no part in politics, practising as a lawyer for almost a decade. Eventually he joined the government, becoming Minister of Education, then deputy prime minister.

His premiership was marked by economic stability and considerable growth, in spite of racial tensions and the continuing communist threat a reminder of the terrorism he had fought in the 1940s and 1950s. He could be ruthless. In 1979 he threatened to have shot on sight the first batch of Vietman-ese refugees arriving in Malaysia, relenting only on condition that some 70,000 boat people in temporary camps in his country were relocated elsewhere. They were. Datuk Hussein Onn, born February 12, 1922; died San Francisco, Hay 23, 199a 23 73 Locarno 24 75 26 79 ondon 23 73 25 77 'Los Angeles 17 63 17 63 Luxembourg 23 73 36 97 Madrid 25 77 29 64 Majorca 26 79 24 75 Malaga 25 77 20 68 Malta 23 73 22 72 Manchester 17 63 27 61 Melbourno 12 54 21 70 'Miami 32 90 18 64 "Montreal 17 63 32 90 Moscow 13 56 29 84 Munich 22 72 22 72 fjaptes 24 75 17 63 'Nassau 30 66 26 79 New Delhi 37 99 20 68 'Now York 23 73 13 55 Newcastle 15 59 31 68 Nice 22 72 19 66 Oporto 21 70 15 59 Oslo 13 55 23 73 parlS 26 79 22 72 Perth 5 IB 64 28 79 Prague 22 72 15 59 Reykiavlk 13 55 23 73 Rhodes 19 66 33 91 RQ de Jan 27 ai 22 72 Rome 23 73 16 61 Salzburg 22 72 20 63 Seoul 16 61 13 55 Singapore 27 81 26 79 Stockholm 21 70 24 75 Strasbourg 26 79 25 77 Sydney 16 64 21 70 Tangier 25 77 24 75 Tel Aviv 27 81 23 73 Tanerife 24 75 t4 57 Tokyo 23 73 20 68 Tunis 23 73 23 73 Valencia 24 75 16 61 'Vancouver 10 50 Dr 12 54 Venice 22 72 23 73 Vienna 17 63 17 63 Warsaw 19 66 32 90 'Washington 22 72 22 72 Wellington 14 57 26 79 Zurich 23 73 drime; F.

fair; Fg. fog; H. hail; R. gering nostalgia has to be part of the Introduction and Allegro. The two baroque works Vivaldi's Concerto in minor for four violins, and Bach's Violin Concerto in A minor were effectively done.

One felt, moreover, that any four of the 11 PCO violinists could have dealt with the Vivaldi as efficiently as the four who actually played it. But, admirable soloist though he was in the Bach, Jan Stanienda's great talent is for leading the orchestra from the first desk. He makes no apparent fuss about it and yet he secures as tidy an ensemble as Jerzy Maksymiuk (the founder of the orchestra) ever did with a baton, and he is capable of inspiring thoroughly distinctive interpretations. So the Bartok Divertimento, even though it too requires more players than this, found the Polish Chamber Orchestra at its best again, above all, in the sinister colouring of the central Molto Adagio. farming, leaving more time for music.

A record on the illustrious Topic label in 1975 was followed by a tour in a band of rock-turned-folk musicians led by Ashley Hutchings, solo appearances at folk music con-, certs at the Royal Albert Hall, and performances at folk festivals all over the country. But, in spite of these national appearances, the best context for his music were the dances in and around Dartmoor with his own Dartmoor Pixie Band, a recording of which has recently been released on the Veteran label. Latterly, this band had included Bob's son Mark Bazeley on concertina and melodeon. Bob, a tireless champion of Dartmoor traditions and crafts, including the step-dancing and broom dancing which he taught, also founded the Dartmoor Folk Festival. The tunes Bob played were learned from members of his own family, especially his uncles, from gypsies who visited the area, from other local musicians, as well as from records by Jimmy Shand and folk revivalists.

His distinctive, driving style of playing was ideal for dancing to. In 1981, Bob was awarded the English Folk Dance and Song Society's Gold Badge, and in 1989 a BEM in the New Year Honours for services to local and national folk music. Drk Schof laid of a stone's throw now and then we were separated by a part of the wood that hangs over the Margin and I hope you have paced this blind track for never did path lead amongst so much loveliness what divine Villages! But I must not think about them now for Joanna wants to be in bed At Vi past 1 oClock we were seated within the Ruins of Tin-tern Abbey a finer day never shone at that hour I do not think we could have seen the place under greater advantage I sate a long time alone in a deep nich I would have given the World to have had thee by my side. Mary Wordsworth to William. The Love Letters of William and Mary Wordsworth edited by Beth Darlington (Chatto and Windus 1982).

i ILL Sowerbutts, who has died at the age of 179, was a curiously 'complex character. First and foremost, he was a shrewd businessman, as all those involved in the horticultural, nursery, and seed trade during the 1930s needed to be. Over the years of our association, first as members of the Gardeners' Question Time team on Radio Four, and latterly on the television programme, Gardeners' Direct Line, I became aware of and learnt to appreciate the other sides of his character. There was his keen love of, and interest in, the game of cricket; first as a player, than as a supporter both of local and the county teams of Lancashire and Derbyshire. Conversations on this particular subject continued through many a long evening on weekends away with the Gardeners' Question Time team.

Golf was another of Datuk Hussein Onn 23 10 19 Cloudy 33 13 18 Cloudy 2 0 .03 9 19 Shwra pm 2 3 03 12 21 Shwrs pm 08 .02 11 19 Shwrs pm 25 02 11 18 Shwrs pm 1 7 05 12 18 Rain pm 2 1 01 19 Cloudy .30 10 17 Bright pm 3.3 .01 9 17 Shwrs am 5 7 .02 12 17 Shwrs am 52 15 24 Cloudy 4.0 13 20Cloudy WEST COAST .46 10 15 Bright pm .40 10 16 Cloudy 2 2 .04 12 IS Cloudy 3 0 .04 14 17 Shwrs pm 2 2 .07 12 18 Shwrs pm 40 .10 12 16 Sunny pm .40 OS 10 16 Ram 43 07 12 17 Showor3 .26 53 11 13 Cloudy 22 39 12 14 Ram am 2 4 .08 12 17 Rain pm 22 .18 13 17 Cloudy .14 13 16 Bright pm 28 .13 12 15 Rain am 09 10 14 Ruin 2.5 02 11 17 Shwrs pm 32 12 15 Rain 04 .13 12 15 Rain .60 11 12 Rain 22 33 12 17 Ham am t.4 .05 13 17 Shwrs pm .24 9 10 Rain 25 11 15 flam 23 65 12 15 Rain am 14 09 11 14 Shwrs am 79 06 11 15 Bright LAND .5 2 06 12 17 Showers Alaccia Algiers Amsterdam Athens Bahrain 'Barbados Barcelona Belgrado Benin 'Bermuda BiarriB Birmingham Bombay Bordeaux 'Boston Bristol Brussels 'B Aires Cairo Cape Town Carditl Casablanca 'Chicago Colcgna Copenhagen Corfu 'Dalles 'Denver Dublin Oubrovnjk Edinburgh faro Florence Frankfurt Funchal Geneva Gibraltar Glasgow Helsinki Innsbruck Inverness Istanbul Jersey Joburg Lernaca Las Palmas Lisbon rain: SI. sleet. Sn. snow. S.

sunny. Th, thunder. (rravious aay roauingsj Sun and moon Today SUN RISES 2108 0155 1514 2109 0208 1624 moon: Full am LIghtlng-up Today Belfast 2149 2120 2117 2150 2108 2127 2133 2122 2151 2121 211B 2152 2109 2129 2135 2123 to 0453 to 0449 to 0458 lo 0439 to 0448 to 0445 (o 0433 to 0444 to 0453 to 0448 to 0457 to 0438 to 0447 to 0445 to 0433 lo 0443 Tomorrow Bolfast Newcastle Nottingham High tides Today London Qrldge 0948 Dover 0724 Liverpool 0714 Avonmouth 0240 Hull 0228 Greenock 0744 Lelth 1056 Dun Laoghalre 0803 Tomorrow 7.5 10.4 6.2 28 4.6 34 London readings From 6pm Thursday to 6am yesterday: Min lamp 18C (61F). From 6am to 6pm yesterday: Max tamp 23C (73F). Total period: sunshine, 3.8 hrs; rainfall, Weather Forecast, page 24 Tomorrow London BrldQe 1057 6.1 2321 e.o Dover 0826 5.4 2042 5.7 Liverpool 0819 7.7 2055 7.7 Avonmouth 0343 10.7 1621 10.7 Hull 0333 5.9 1540 62 Greenock 0908 3.0 2218 2.9 Leith 1158 4.7 Dun Laoohaire 0903 3.8 2140 3.4 ONE of England's finest traditional musicians died on Friday, May 25.

Bob Cann was born in 1916 and lived all his life on the edge of Dartmoor, east of Okehampton in the villages of South Zeal and South Tawton. His family were all singers, musicians and step-dancers, and he started playing the melo-deon at the age of three. Between the wars, he cycled all over the district playing for dances "sixpenny hops," although his daytime job was as a farmer. The dances he played for ranged from the older barn dances and hornpipes to the Waltz Coltillion, the Lancers and the more modern foxtrot In the late 1940s, the folk dance and song revival "discovered" Bob and he was used extensively by the English Folk Dance and Song Society in the south west of England. He did not always see eye to eye with the folk music establishment: to Bob, they did not promote the sort of village dances that the local people on Dartmoor could associate with.

Nevertheless, he played for society dances, and in 1957 took first prize in a nationwide contest for solo folk instrumentalists in London. Radio and television work followed, but his daytime commitments in farming prevented him from regular visits outside his home area. In the mid-1970s, ill health made him give up Another day Chepstow, June 2, 1812: When we returned to the Inn indeed my dearest love, though I was not the least tired with my ride my pulses were all beating I so much enjoyed perfect stillness and freedom of exertion of any kind that I could not even ask for pen ink to write to thee at Ross I had not time as you will have observed this morning we were off as soon as breakfast was over William what enchanting scenes we have passed through but you know it all only I must say longings to have you by my side have this day been painful to me beyond expression. We coursed the back of the Wye all the way from Monmouth to Tintern Abbey the River on our left hand now close to us now at the distance A charioteer for Iwiciigif3ili93 1 3ij3 Ex mouth Torquay Reading not available. Leisure forecast CHmbcra and walkara In Scotland can obtain a special forecast by dialling 0898 500 followed by 442 In the East or 441 In the West.

Sailors can check conditions by dialling 0698 500 followed by tha code for their area: Scotland 451; Scotland 452; NE England 453: England 454; Anglla 455; Channel 456: Mid Channel 4S7; SW England 458: Bristol Channel 459. Wales 460; NW England 461 Clyde 462; Caledonia 463: Mlnch 464; Ulster 465. Major roadworks South-Hart Mill J6-J7. M2Si J18-J20 M2: J5-J6. M20t J8.

M23i width restrictions on airport link; overnight fano closures J9-J10. M2Ti westbound J5. M40t contraflow J7-A40, Wast and Walaa MSi contraflow J19. M4t J19; restrictions at Severn bridge. MHJ23-J24.

MBi J4- J4a. Maraayakfa M63i J7-J9 Scotland MQi slip roads J13. M74t Raith Interchange to M73. Road Information compiled and supplied by AA Roadwatch. Manchester readings From 6pm Thursday to Cam yesterday Mm Blackpool Morecambe Douglas WALES Anijlnmy Cardiir Colwyn R.iy Prosiatyn Te nhy SCOTLAND ahorrtnnn Aummnrn n.inhar Flnhnrgh CaWrtnlnmiiir Glasgow Ki loss Lerwick Louchars Prestwlck Tire THE best description of Datuk Hussein Onn's skills as prime minister of Malaysia came from a British resident of Kuala Lumpa who said he was like the chariot driver in the film Ben Hur: keeping control of ten wilful horses while managing to outlap his competitors.

A barrister by training, his career coincided with the emergence of a racially mixed and politically turbulent colony as a viable membership of ASEAN. He was premier from 1976 until ill health forced his retirement in 1981. He had joined the Malay Administration Service after fighting alongside the British Liberation Forces in 1945. Later, he was youth leader and national secretary of the United Malay National Organisation (UMNO), chief partner in the coalition he was to head almost 30 years later as prime minister. In Use lSfiOtb ha fouadal an.