H.E. Bates Companion

An enthusiastic review of the Festival Pleasure Gardens in Battersea (a part of the Festival of Britain), describing in detail the rides, games, and other attractions. Bates closes with a reflection: "Cinema, radio, and now television, are the forces of modern inventions that have, one by one, unjoyously, done something to take away from [man] the impulses towards collective and public gaiety that were as natural to his grandfather as drawing breath." In a subsequent article, one on Paris's 2000th birthday celebration, Bates would complain of the rudeness of Battersea barmen at closing time ("The Magic of Paris"). In Illustrated (June 9, 1951, pp. 26-28, 35).