Nat Gubbins

Lord Beaverbrook's flamboyant Sunday Express of London is one of Britain's most popular papers. One reason: Nathaniel Gubbins, a 50-year-old, pink-faced fellow who looks like a shy insurance agent whose feet hurt. Nathaniel (real name: Norman) Gubbins is a columnist.

Once a week Nat Gubbins speaks for the British man-in-the-street better than the British man-in-the-street can speak for himself. Dry-eyed sentimentalist, sly humorist, casual reformer, recorder of mutton-headed remarks, he has become the most widely read of British columnists. He has no U.S. parallel. His column, "Sitting On The Fence," is a kind-of literary comic strip, in which various permanent characters comment obliquely or directly on the affairs of men.

Conversations. When the British obviously had Rommel on the run in Egypt last November, "Sitting On The Fence" voiced the national sentiments in a dialogue between Gubbins and The Chimney Sweep :

"Well, cor stone the crows," said the Sweep. " 'ow do you think things are gettin' along now?"

"Not so bad," I said.

"Not so bad at all," said the Sweep, "and 'specially considerin' little old 'itler said we was military idiots. . . . Cor strike a light. If we'd 'ad any military sense at all we'd 'ave packed up in June 1940."

"We would," I said. . . .

"But you don't want to start slackin' orf just because we've 'ad a victory," said the Sweep. ". . . Keep up your 'ome Guard and keep your stirrup pumps 'andy."

"That's right," I said.

"Though seein' we don't often 'ave a victory," said the Sweep, "there's no reason wliy you shouldn't 'ave a pint."

"Thank you," I said.

" 'ere's to the military idiots." said the Sweep. ". . . Cor sufferin' wars. Cor chase old auntie Rommel round the sand 'eaps."

Another sample Gubbins dialogue, between two Germans in a Berlin raid shelter:

"Vot vos dot?"

"Dot vos a bompf."

"Und vot der veight of der bompf iss?"

"Der veight of der bompf two tons vos."

"Der last time der veight of der bompf two tons iss der Stinkenhausenstrasse no more vos."

"For saying dot Hans to der concentration camp haf gone. Heil Hitler."

"Heil Hitler. . . ."

"Poddon. But vot vos dot?"

"Dot vos a four-ton bompf."

"Der last time der veight of der bompf four tons iss der town hall, der hotel, der railroad station und der gas vorks no more vos."

"For saying dot Hermann to der concentration camp haf gone. Heil Hitler."

Characters. Of all Gubbins characters, Sally the Cat is perhaps best-liked. She is Winston Churchill's favorite. Currently she is being urged by Gubbins to marry The Ginger Cat of London's Maida Vale, a real animal who recently actually inherited -L-4,000. Says Sally: "I will never marry for anything but love." Jeers Gubbins: "You've never married anybody at all yet, although you're the mother of 109 kittens." Other Gubbins creations:

> Aunt Maud, a middle-class lady who, in letters, keeps her nephew in the army informed on Home Front conditions, particularly the feud between the Whist Club Committee and the Impoverished Gentlewoman's True Blue Conservative Associaation; Uncle Fred and the ironmonger--the local Home Guard unit is too small to hold them both; Aunt Maud's gardener, who persistently reads Karl Marx and who says "It is no use planting anything this spring as we shall have the revolution before the onions come up."

> The Sparrow, a human sort of bird who is forever quarreling with Mrs. Sparrow over trivial war annoyances. Each week, after a tiff, he flies off in a fret to his club or the Other Sparrow while a tear trickles down Mrs. Sparrow's beak.

> Margaret's father, a man who loves drink and statistics of Nazi casualties.

Cockney. Nathaniel Gubbins says of himself: "I am an English Cockney." He got his first job in the Daily Express library, filing clippings. After World War I he was rehired as a reporter, but later was laid off. He tried short-story writing, then caught on as a reporter for the London Daily Mirror. There he acquired no reputation, but did acquire a wife: Mirror Reporter Phillida Hughes. They were once assigned to cover a pomp-&-pageantry affair. Since both suffered from ochlophobia (fear of crowds), they covered it from a tea shop. Gubbins wrote a glowing account of the occasion sight unseen and had time left to persuade Phillida to marry him.

After a stint on the Sunday Dispatch he joined the Sunday Express, in November 1930, began writing "Sitting On The Fence" for Express readers, who immediately began to lob indignant letters into the Express office. Nat Gubbins kept at it, slowly acquired his present tremendous following.

He lives in a suburban town 20 miles from London with redheaded, cheerful Mrs. Gubbins, Daughters Felicity. 19, and Stephanie, 17, with a cat which actually has had 109 kittens. Gubbins goes to London Thursdays only. The rest of the week he invites his sensitive soul and ear, especially in pubs, picks up many a slow-spoken Briticism:

"If only Gandhi would fast at our house we could have his ration book."

"British coffee is the chief reason why Americans won't visit British homes."

Gubbins' ability to reduce wartime annoyances to absurdity and make Britons chuckle at themselves and their annoyers is the peg on which hangs his success. Last week, counting an average of three readers for each copy of the Sunday Express sold, lugubrious Nathaniel Gubbins had an audience of almost 5,000,000.

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