IN THE LIMELIGHT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 185, 6 August 1936, Page 22

IN THE LIMELIGHT.

N.S.W. BRIDAL COUPLE.

SUSTENANCE ADVENTURE. SHOPKEEPERS' PUBLICITY. (Froui Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, July 31. During the past week the Parramatta Road Shopkeepers' Association has conducted a carnival to celebrate the establishment of the new suburb of West Gate. It may be explained that the Parramatta Road is the nn»in highway running west from Sydney, and though Parramatta is nearly 15 miies from the metropolis the interval betv.eiii the little country town and the city is taken up by an unbroken line of suburbs. 1 lie new suburb, West Gate, runs through three municipalities —Loichhardt, Aniiandale and Petersham —and a civic ball, under the patronage of the three councils was held at David Jones' on July 29.

With the Parramatta Road Shopkeepers behind it, the inaugural ceremony proved a great success, and the shopkeepers all along the great thoroughfare voted it a highly satisfactory function. But from the point of view of , public interest, by far the most spectacular episode was the marriage of two young suburbanities, Thomas Fidler (23), of Petersham, and Menu Palmer (22), of Croydon. Relief Work Prospect. The two principals at the fateful ceremony are well known and apparently very popular in their respective districts. Fidler is a storeman and packer by occupation, but that title is seemingly a nominal one as he has been unemployed for 18 months. However, Tom and Mena had decided that, unemployed or not, they would get married, and Tom had at least the consolation of knowing that, once married, he eouhl get relief work —at £1 1/6 a week.

The people of the Parramatta Road suburbs seem to have been much impressed by the courage with which the young couple had decided to face the. future, and the shopkeepers who were most directly interested in the carnival decided to exploit the marriage, after a generous fashion, in their own business interests. But it may be doubted whether the wedding or the carnival would have been so successful if the "Labour Daily" had npt taken up the incident for its own purposes, and made political capital out of it in its most offensive style.

A few days ago there appeared in the "Labour Daily" under the caption "Brave Young World'," the portraits of Mr. Fidler and Miss Palmer with a footnote intimating that the decision of these two young people to get man led on the prospect of 21/ li a week might give an idea of the condition to which the Stevens Government has reduced Xew South Wales. There is not much excuse for making any Government responsible for the needs or the failures of everybody who happens to be unemployed. But when one remembers how much Mr. Lang did to destroy our industrial prospects, and to increase unemployment here, it is indeed outrageous that his formalists mouthpieces now utilise such an incident so unscrupulously in the hope of gaining a slight political advantage for themselves.

It ia probable that Mr. Fidler and Miss Palmer would not have achieved no much notoriety and that their married life would not have opened so auspiciously if it had not been for the publicity thus conferred upon them by the "Labour Daily." But the people concerned with the carnival evidently realised that tho wedding had become a matter of wide-spread public interest, aiul they decided to make the most of it. " Here Comes The Bride." The couple were to be married on Tuesday, at the Strand Theatre, West Gate, and long before the appointed hour the building was packed to suffocation with 3000 spectators, mostly women, who apparently found this wedding quite as exciting at* any ceremonial that ever crowded St. Andrew's Cathedral or Darling Point Church, with the families of our "rich and great."

There was excitement while the people were waiting at the church, immense enthusiasm when the bride appeared, beautifully arrayed in a gown presented by an enterprising West Gate shopkeeper—immense disappointment when, in a moment of pardonable confusion, the bridegroom forgot to kiss the bi ide. But the climax of this romantic episode was reached after the ceremonial, when, escorted by thousands, the happy pair proceeded to make a tour of West Gate to secure their weddinor presents. Two hundred shopkeepers alonp the Parraniatta Road invited Mr. Fidler and his bride to visit them after the wedding and receive presents. Naturally the bridegroom and the bride accepted the invitation, and, followed by cheering thousands, they made the "grand tour" of West Gate and its environs, called in at 200 shops, and received gifts valued in all at over £200. The public excitement remained for hours unabated; a small army of police were required to keep order and clear the sidewalks; and the happy pair finally took refuge in their new home, loaded with possessions which certainly represented a great deal more in the way of worldly wealth than the average unemployed bridegroom can provide.