Our man in South Vietnam

THE new British Ambassa dor in South Vietnam, Mr. Raymond Ethcrington-Smith C.M.G., has had a long and successful diplomatic career, which has already taken him round the world, and faced him with difficult assignments.
Born in 1914, he was educated at Downside and at Magdalen College, Oxford. He was appointed a third secretary at the Foreign Office in 1936, and was posted to Berlin in 1939. He left Berlin for Copenhagen in September of that year and in April 1940, he returned to the Foreign Office in London.
During the war years, he served at Washington, and later at Chungking. From 1952 to 1954, he was Chargé d'Affaires at the Holy See.
Mr. Etherington-Smith has been in Saigon before, during 1956-7, when he was Charge d'Affaires there, before going on to be Counsellor at the Hague and at Singapore. He received his C.M.G. in January year.
His posting, direct from Singapore to Saigon, means that Mr. Etherington-Smith has had no opportunity to return home, to Limpsfield, in Surrey.
Sir George Bendel, who has a distinguished diplomatic record, including a period as British Ambassador to Belgium. told me this week that he claims a little of the credit for Mr. EtheringtonSmith's career. An old Downside boy himself, Sir George went down there at one time to talk to some of the boys about the Foreign Office, and Mr. Etherington-Smith successfully applied to join it.
Sir George stressed to me the significance of Mr. EtheringtonSmith's appointment to Saigon at the time of South Vietnam's political crisis. "It is an extremely delicate position," he said, "and will require the most careful handling".
Reproductions
raLD MASTERS, we know, are rare, but reproduction of some of them are almost as rare as the originals, according to Mrs. Gordon Ross, who writes to us from Northwood, Middlesex.
Mrs. Ross is anxious to buy some christening presents for her twin grandsons, who are called
Fiancis and Christopher. She had the bright idea of looking for reproductions of old paintings of the saints, hut so far, she complains, she has had little success. She has scoured all the London shops she can think of, but all to no avail.
I wonder if any of our readers have encountered, and solved, a similar problem to that of Mrs. Ross. If so, she will I am sure, be delighted with any suggestions which they care to send to the CATHOLIC fIFRALD,
Copper missioners SEVERAL readers have written in reply to Miss Jane Helsby who said recently, in our correspondence columns, that it had cost her 175. 6d. to send a parcel of magazines and pamphlets to Nyasaland.
Our correspondents point out that all parcels of printed matter should be stamped at the printed paper rate, which is, for all countries abroad. 2id. for the first 2 oz. and ltd. for each additional 2 oz.
Bulk postings are charged at the rate of Is. id. per lb. Packets of printed paper have, of course, to be open-ended, so that the Post Office can satisfy themselves that there is no other matter being carried at the cheap rate.
The CATHOLIC HERALD weighs 2+ oz..% so that two copies can' be sent to the ends of the earth, to missioners and native Catholics who desperately need good religious reading. for less than 6d. Cheap enough. surely, for all of us to become missionaries for a few coppers a week.
Retirement
FR. WILLIAM BAINBRIDGE, who has had the Catholics of High Wycombe, where the CATHOLIC HERALD is printed, in his charge for the best part of 25 years, left this week to spend his retirement at Ramsgate.
It was in 1926 that Fr. Bainbridge came to High Wycombe, after being ordained in St. Chad's Cathedral, Birmingham, to take up his duties in a little church in Castle Street. Born in 1892, he was for some years a chorister in the Anglican Cathedral of Southwark before his conversion to Catholicism.
When he first arrived at High Wycombe, his duties included saying Mass at Beaconsfield, in a room at the public house which
is now called "The Earl of Beaconsfield". Princes Risborough, too, was served from High Wycombe, and this heavy burden meant that Fr. Bainbridge had to do plenty of cycling in weathers both fine and foul.
Now, both Beaconsfield and Princes Risborough have thriving parishes of their own, and High Wycombe itself boasts a fine new church at Amersham Hill, which was completed and Paid for within a year of its opening in 1957.
Besides their church, the Catholics of High Wycombe had their choir to be proud of. An expert in hymnology himself, Fr. Bainbridge worked tirelessly in the cause of good church music, until his choir was in demand for broadcasts on both home and overseas networks.
Fr. Bainbridge's interest in music also showed itself in his work for the revival of mediaeval church music at Westminster Cathedral during a period of absence from High Wycombe, and in his taking on the post of musical editor of the New Westminster Hymnal, not to mention his many reviews, articles and lectures.
Education
MORE news about the Newman Association concerns a conference entitled "Catholics and the Universities" to be held in Norwich on September 21 and 22. It strikes me that the title may be a bit offputting since the aim of the conference is to take a serious look at the structure of Catholic education as a whole.
One of the main speakers will be Mr. R. F. Cunningham. secretary of the Catholic Education Council. A distinguished Cambridge scholar and a first-class administrator, Mr. Cunningham will outline the whole present structure of the Catholic system. from national to local level.
Another main speaker will be Mr. Anthony Spencer, director of the Newman Demographic Survey. It is the figures compiled by the Survey which provide the ammunition the Bishops use in their negotiations on schools with local authorities and the Ministry.
The third main speaker is a sociologist — Mr. James Halloran. Senior Tutor in the University of Leicester, and a writer. He has recently published two books, on capital punishment and on mass communication.