A MAID IN MAYFAIR

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 209, 3 September 1932, Page 4 (Supplement)

A MAID IN MAYFAIR

ROYAL MOTOR CYCLIST. FASHION DESERTS HYDE PARK. (From Our London I/ady Correspondent.,) The Prince of Wales' thirty-eighth birthday found him in the midst of the busiest week of the London season. If he had been offered the- birthday present he most desired, I suspect he would have asked merely to have been given to-day entirely to himself and off duty, whether public or social. Those who knew him as a rather callow young Guards subaltern in France during the war, and have met him recently, realise that he has amazingly matured in the interim. Yet it is almost impossible to reconcile oneself to the fact that he is now within two years of forty, and therefore by all the tokens a middle-aged man. It is often said the Prince resembles King Edward, a superstition that perhaps explains the Prince's determined slimming regime. With all respect to his grandfather's memory, I should say the Prince is much less centred in sport, •■■and more keenly intrigued by affaire and people. SEEKING A REST. The quiet time the Duchess of, York is having down at Sandwich, with her children while all the rest of ■ society 'is making merry at Ascot is due, I am told, to the state of her health.' She has never been very strong, and the many public and other engagements she has carried out since the season opened have tired her unduly. She has decided, therefore, to rest as much as she can during the remaining weeks that she will remain south. , Afterwards she plans a visit to Glamis Caetlc, where the air always suits her, and where she revels in the free open air life she is able to enjoy amongst her girlhood friends. Sandwich was selected for her seaside holiday on account of the proximity of the links where the Duke of York, who is as keen on the game as the Prince of Wales, is able to golf either at Prince's or at Royal St. George's. ; l INCOGNITO. During their recent visit to London the King and Queen of the Belgians went about quite unrecognised and unaccompanied, and shopped, supped, or went to theatres or cinemas just like any jolly suburban couple. tSome London papers have boasted about this, and declared that nownere else could royalty enjoy a similar immunity and freedom. A Dutch journalist tells me this is quite a mistaken notion. King Albert and his smartly dressed consort regularly go Swiss sporting, just like ordinary mortate, and suffer no annoyance from public curiosity. He assured me that, oil at -least one occasion, 'the King of the Belgians has taken the' Queen on a motor cycle tour on the Continent without even being once recognised. The fact is, of course, that few people suspect a king of being at the handlebaTS of a motor,tike or a queen on the pillion seat. ..... MRS. ANDREW CARNEGIE. Mrs. Andrew Carnegie's visit to Skibo Castle, Sutherlandshire, after an absence of two ■ years is not surprising, for it -was there that she and her husband spent some of their happiest days. He bought the place a few years after their marriage in 1887, and spent a large sum in modernising and enlarging what had formerly been a picturesque, but not particularly comfortable mansion-house of the familiar Scottish baronial type. Though he was of Lowland birth and pedigree he delighted in reviving Highland customs, such as having a piper to play in front of the castle to waken the numerous guests whom he loved to entertain. Mrs. Carnegie took a lively interest in her husband's philanthropic schemes, and on her way north she paid a visit to his native town of Dunferm*line, for whose amenity the trust he * founded has done eo much. Mrs. Carnegie is American! by birth, but like bo'many of ; her country-women, she fell inlove with Scotland as soon as she saw it, -and in "particular she found the remote loveliness of Skibo a delightful contrast to the bustle of Pittsburgh and New York. . • ' ■ ' •

SWEDISH BETROTHAL. - Princes 'Siibylle, the betrothed of, Prince -Gustaf "Adolf, will readily accom-: jnodate herself -to Swedish conditions ■when ; ehe takes up : her residence: in Stockholm." " Curiously; enough for one of the house-of. Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, she underwent very' much' the same course of domestic training as her future eister-in-law, Princess Ingrid. Both were encouraged-to go in for sports and-gam,ee; —a great feature-of life In--Sweden. 1 Both are fearless riders, keen at gardening, and know all there is to learn about cooking, sewing, laundry work and othefdomestia arts. But, t.Vre are one or two thing? that Princess Sibylfe will ! Btill have to learn if she is to take her full place amongst the eport-loving girls, of Stockholm. She will have to .become expert at ski-ing—one. of the ; national sports—she will.have to : swim and. paddle a canoe, and she will have to learn that:most fascinating of all pastimes —the art of sailing, on ice. GETTING RECKLESS? I -was talking to-day to a well-known bookie who for; some reason or other :is always greatly patronised by.women at Aecot. -They generally get a male- escort to take the money along to him, but women are his best customers, and hie business is so extensive that he employs a small army of'-assistants. . This man was telling me that, from his point of view, this year's Ascot has been a record • one, both in number and in amounts. !The,bets he has handled have exceeded anything he has ever. experienced before. He has a curious theory to account for it. . People, he eays, are so hard up that,they are getting reckless. They risk far more than they can afford in the hope of bringing, off a "scoop." 'GONE! Even if these lean years are followed by fat ones ■ of bursting prosperity, I doubt whether Ascot Sunday will ever revive its ancient glories. Time was, even since the war, when Hyde Park after church on Ascot Sunday, and Boulter's lock after lunch, presented the most brilliant fashion spectacle in the •world. But society no longer parades in Hyde Park, Which has been hopelessly vulgarised by the Lido, and Mayfair no : more goes boating up the .river, which has yielded the elfin secret of its backwaters to raucous petrol launches. Any Aeeot Sunday ten or twelve years ago, between the Achilles statue and the Marble Arch, you met half Debrett and most of the Cabinet, and the Park was ga,y with incredible beauty and fashion. Now it is about as fashionable as Margate on August Bank holiday.