British HistorY--4
HAZEL WINTER: Early Days in Virginid
2.25 Interval
2.30 Dramatic Reading
' X=O ' by John Drinkwater
This afternoon schools are to hear the reading of an ironical play, showing the folly of war. The scene is set in the tenth year of the siege of Troy. Helen's beauty has long ceased to inspire, the soldiers on either side-they don't know what they are fighting for. But from time to time a Greek is ordered to go -out on night patrol and kill a Trojan, just as a Trojan is ordered to go out and kill a Greek. Neither the one nor the other has any wish to kill.
On the Greek side Pronax, who would be a statesman, leaves his friend, Salvius, who is a poet, reading, and goes out into the darkness, whilst on the Trojan side Ilus, who would be a statesman too, leaves his friend Capys, a young sculptor, on guard, and glides out into the night from the Trojan wall.
Schools will hear what happened and may not go back in their minds as long ago as the siege of Troy. They may remember hearing that men went out on just such patrols between 1914 and 1918. 2.50 Interval