Kipper Caper

At a festive breakfast for 80 in London's Claridge's Hotel last week, Sir Frederick Bell, chairman of Britain's Herring Industry Board, rose to speak. "With all the fine food they have in America," said Sir Frederick, "the one thing they lack is a fine Scottish kipper." The guests agreed. They had just eaten 160 fine Scottish kippers to celebrate the shipping of 4,000,000 cellophane-wrapped, frozen kippers to New York, in the first big postwar invasion of the bacon & eggs (and dollar) market by the trade.

Kippers were not the only out-of-the-way item that Britain was exporting to the U.S. in her increasingly successful search for dollars. Others included rubber life-size king cobras for theatrical and carnival use, orchids, carillon bells and radioactive isotopes.

Most eye-catching export: life-size mechanical elephants, made by a Maxted, Essex company. They wave their trunks, flap their ears, have a carrying capacity of ten adults or 16 children and get 15 miles on the gallon. Five have been ordered by U.S. showmen. Price: $3,200 apiece.

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