GREAT BRITAIN: No Place Like Stoke

. . . You cannot drink tea out of a teacup without the aid of the Five Towns [federated into Stoke-on-Trent],… For this, [its] architecture is an architecture of ovens and chimneys; for this, its atmosphere is as black as its mud; for this, it burns and smokes all night, so that [z£] has been compared to hell; . . . for this . . . it comprehends the mysterious habits of fire and pure, sterile earth; for this it lives crammed together in slippery streets where the housewife must change white window curtains at least once a fortnight . . . / For this it exists—that you may drink tea out of a teacup and toy with a chop on a plate. . . . It is England in little, lost in the midst of England. . . . —Arnold Bennett

(The Old Wives’ Tale).

U.S. Sergeant Richard Harding Davis* liked Stoke-on-Trent, for all its soot. Out of all the millions of G.I.s (who, on the banks of the Meuse and the Danube, in the shadow of the Colosseum and the Taj Mahal, yearned for the corner drugstore), Davis longed only for Stoke.

So when he was discharged from the U.S. Army last November, Davis forswore his native Columbus, Ohio, rushed back to Stoke, got a job as a biscuit salesman. He married his wartime sweetheart, 19-year-old Alma Taylor, and prepared to settle down to life in the crammed streets behind curtains only fortnightly white. He even wanted to become a subject of the King. But Britain’s Home Office was not looking for immigrants. It declared that Davis was using up needed food and clothing, and ordered him to leave the realm.

When Stoke heard about it, anger swept through the city of fire and earth. The people liked this squarejawed, plain-speaking American. If he wanted to be one of them, why, no bloke in any bloomin’ office up in London had a right to interfere. Three hundred petitions (“We, the undersigned constituents of the Potteries towns . . . record our protest . . .”) circulated throughout the Five Towns, bore 10,000 signatures by last week.

As Davis walked through the streets of Stoke last week (with only nine days until his time in Britain was up), people shook his hand and told him not to worry. From all over England, letters poured in blasting the Government and offering assistance. The Government retreated. This week it extended Davis’ stay in Britain until January (when the weather in Stoke is wont to be particularly foul).

*Named after, but no kin to, the late great U.S. journalist.