Hurdler in a Hurry

Appointed last week as new Governor and Commander in Chief of Bermuda was David George Brownlow Cecil, Lord Burghley. His chief duty: to play host to Bermuda's distinguished visitors.

Young (38), straw-haired Lord Burghley should fit the office well. He is a scion of the brilliant house of Cecil, which has furnished Britain with some of its most distinguished statesmen and soldiers. His father is the Marquess of Exeter; from him some day Lord Burghley will inherit enormous estates in Northamptonshire and Rutlandshire. His wife is a sister of the Duchess of Gloucester. Lord Burghley looks like someone disguised as a handsome, sporting Englishman, but his is no masquerade.

In 1927, his last year at Cambridge University, as midnight tolled, he sprinted around the "Great Court" of Trinity College (374 2/3 yds.) before Trinity's clock finished chiming the hour. Next year at Amsterdam he won the Olympic 400-meter hurdles. Prewar voyagers on the Queen Mary could view a brass plate on the promenade deck recording Lord Burghley's dash around the quarter-mile deck in full evening dress--time: 58 sec. In 1931 he stood as a Conservative, was elected to the House of Commons. In 1932 he went to Los Angeles as captain of the British Olympic Track Team.

The U.S. press observed that he was "the only athlete in the world who can look at 35 Rembrandts in his own home and then take a warm-up jog through 40,000 acres without leaving his own domain. Yet he is the most democratic member of [his] village--keen, alert, gracious and always ready with a quick smile and unlimited courtesy." This time he finished fourth in the 400-meter hurdles.

Next year he announced that he was "too old and too busy to continue my career as a hurdler." In 1935 he was re-elected to Parliament, became a Baldwin 30 and Chamberlain man. In 1938, supporting Munich, he said: Britain should be "big enough to be above a mud-slinging match." In Bermuda nighttime Hamilton will be a sight for Lord Burghley to see. Its blacked-out, coral streets are packed with residents, visitors, soldiers. & sailors on shore leave. There is practically no civilian automobile traffic, and crowds too big for the sidewalks mill into the streets. Hotspots serve weak drinks at stiff prices.

As Governor, Lord Burghley will have to do some social thinking for Bermuda's peace: when the war ends and the garrisons are reduced, Bermuda's golden stream will dry up. Negro workers now making about $3 a day will worry about unemployment. Bermuda's ruling merchants are already planning cushioning measures to carry them from wartime boom to peacetime security. There is serious talk of changing Bermuda from a millionaires' retreat to a popular, popular-priced Atlantic resort for the masses.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.