Pianist Humby

In the midst of this week's heat wave, CBS gave a Sunday broadcast of music that was as distinguished, and as warmly unseasonal, as a boiled shirt. One of the world's half-dozen ablest conductors, England's goateed, salt-&-peppery Sir Thomas Beecham, struck up with the CBS Symphony. His tangiest item was a seldom-played piano concerto, the only one written by England's late, blind Frederick Delius, who once lived in Florida. At the keyboard in the concerto was a third Briton: pretty, blonde Betty Humby, 33, who has supported herself by expert piano-playing since she was a child of 12.

At 10, Betty Humby was the youngest sprig ever to win a scholarship at the Royal Academy of Music. At 14, she took on 30 pupils of her own. At 16 she became a piano professor, under Pianist Myra Hess at Tobias Matthay's famed London music school. Later she married an Anglican parson, the Reverend H. Cashel Thomas, now vicar of St. Philip's in London.

When the war began, Betty Humby organized concerts in British cathedrals (free, easy to advertise). She also helped keep evacuated children out of mischief by holding morning concerts in cinemas. Last autumn, with her ten-year-old son Jeremy, she went to the U.S., where she plans to remain for the duration, believing (like Conductor Beecham) that she can help England without being there.

Pianist Humby's chief concern in the U.S. is raising money for London's Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children, in which her second brother is chief surgeon. Another concern is broadcasting to Britain by short wave. Pianist Humby hopes that last week's CBS program was heard by her mother, a night rescue worker in London. Miss Humby does not yet know whether her earlier broadcast was picked up where it was aimed--the aircraft carrier Illustrious, whose commander at that time was her brother-in-law.

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