BED AND BREAKFAST A NIGHT

Workers Press no. 700, 28 February 1972 · scan page 10

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Church halls are not usually very comfortable. They are not meant to be.

Big and bleak, amid a marked atmosphere of disuse, their hospitality however welcome, could hardly be described de luxe.

But every night scores of tired, cold and wet Young Socialists marching on London . from Glasgow, Liverpool and Swansea stumble in among the wooden chairs and trestles for soup and sandwiches and a camp bed rest.

Next day, on the road, overtaken by silent Rolls-Royces with bowier-hatted and fur-coated passengers hurryıng.. smugly to lunchtime cocktalls, they will march behind their Right-toWork banners 15, 20 or 25 miles.

They are marching from the drab, stone tenements of Glasgow, the century-old, industrial terraces of S Wales, the Victorian squalor of Liverpool.

Marching. from the closed factories, shuttered shops, dole queues and slum houses which increasingly haunt the working class, like a spectre beckoning back across the years to the 1930s.

Marching to demand from the soft-handed men in 100-guinea suits and £20,000-a-year jobs the Right to Work and to a decent standard of living.

On the same day that all three YS marches took to the road, and in a blaze of publicity appropriate to the launching of the Titanic, the world's most luxurious and exclusive hotel opened its doors in London.

From the moment Queen Victoria built her empire on blood and bones of Asia and Africa the London Berkeley has served as a country house in heart of London for nobility and gentry, and quiet Americans. Above: The Berkelay Hotel. Left: One of the rooms with gilt, cut glass, leather and timeless quality.

And every room with its sumptuous, in mock, old-world furnishings quiet but rich colours, occasionally set off by bowls of red roses or carnations, is air conditioned with two alternative heating systems.

Materials and ideas for the seven-storey building have been brought from all over Britain, from France and as far away as Thailand and Honduras.

The Clipsham stone cladding was carted from Rutland and the green roof tiles from Westmorland.

Some of the textiles came from Asia, the curtains are Toile du Jouy from France. Panelling is of cedar, elm, yew, puny hides leathers and even pony Chandeliers, some from the old Berkeley, which once stood in Piccadilly are of cut and moulded glass.