A MAID IN MAYFAIR

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 235, 3 October 1936, Page 3 (Supplement)

A MAID IN MAYFAIR

A Royal Diary With Much Humour.

bonnet discovered in old cottage

(From Our London Lady Correspondent.)

LADY MAUD CARNEGIE, who is settled with her husband and small son, the Master of Carnegie, at their home farm at ElsicK, in Scotland, for the next two or three months, has as keen a sense of humour as any member of the Royal Family. It was she who, as Princess Maud, began to keep a scrap album entitled "Things We have Never Done," pasting into its pages the fantastic accounts which appeared in print of Royalties' supposed saying and doings. Guests who go to see her in Scotland just now are invariably treated to the most delicious ices which, she tells them quite frankly, are served in order that the delicious cream from her husband's dairies —a successful business proposition —may be sampled, and, also that they may see that the refrigeration equipment in which he is commercially interested, and which she has had installed, can transform the cream into a popular sweet. Seeking Beauty. London's beauty parlours are a great attraction to women visitors from the country and abroad. One of the chief assistants in a fashionable little salon just off Bond Street declared a day or two ago that August and September, far from being "dead months" as they used to be, were now quite as busy as the seasonal times, and that sometimes it was difficult to fit in clients who had not made appointments beforehand. Women will spare a half-day from their week's holiday to have a beauty treatment, ask all kirfds of questions about the uses of creams and lotions, buy a stock of cosmetics, and follow out the treatment on their return home. Young folk should take care not to put themselves too unreservedly into the hands of the smart London hairdresser. Some of the new coiffures are extreme in style, and involve a great deal of trimming. They look satisfactory in the hotel drawing room, but may be quite unsuitable in home surroundings, and locks which have been shorn to the shape of the head may take months to grow again. Old Woman's Bonnet. Conversation at my club turned the other night on the discovery of the famous Marlborough paintings, which were cemented in the wall and completely hidden, and subsequently uncovered again, and led up to a rather pretty story told by a woman artist. She bought a couple of ancient cottages on the south-east coast, and had them knocked into one as a country home. most people who purchase old cottages, she resented the vandalism of people who, in days gone by, had covered with plaster and wallpaper the lovely old oak beams which abounded in the place. She got to work stripping away the plaster and renovating the wood. Eventually they reached a small builtin cupboard and, bringing to view the wall beams, brought to light also a quaint old woman's bonnet, hanging on a nail. It had evidently been carelessly enclosed when the plastering work was done many years ago. Sing-Sing. A member of the Monkey Club in Pont Street —a rendezvous of more serious-minded debutantes who have adopted as their mascot the three little monkeys who "hear no evil, see no evil, say no evil" —tells a good story of a visit she paid to the United States. Her father is a man of some note, and everybody 6he met in the States was anxious to make her .visit as as possible. She wanted to see Sing-Sing

prison, and was duly taken over it. Finally, she was conducted to the "death chamber," and cordially invited to sit in the "chair." She did. And all the horrors of the capital punishment procedure,' and the various gadgets pertaining to it, were graphically related to her, as she sat, frozen, almost literally experiencing the terror of the condemned, unablfl for a time even to move. Homely Royal Couple. Although the operation which Queen Joanna of Bulgaria recently underwent was not of a very serious character it will involve a somewhat prolonged rest. In these circumstances King Boris and his wife have abandoned all idea of visiting England this autumn. King Boris himself has always been rather fond of coming to London at this season of the year in search of a quiet holiday, and usually, after a brief stay in the capital, he has been the guest of Lady Muir, of Blair Drummond, and has spent a pleasant holiday in the Highlands. The King and Queen of Bulgaria are as simple in their tastes as were King Leopold of the Belgians and his late wife, Queen Astrid. To King Boris, as to King Leopold, it appears the most ordinary thing in the world to wheel out his little daughter in her perambulator. Both he and Queen Joanna move about amongst their people, too, with an almost entire absence of state. - Popular Royal Lady. No woman member of the Royal Family, probably, has a wider and more varied circle of friends than Princess Arthur of Connaught, whose democratic outlook on life has always been very marked. During the last month or two she has been very much missed, a major operation of some seriousness having necessitated a long stay in a nursing home and a consequent withdrawal from social life. The Princess is, however, recovering her strength, and has now left her house in Belgrave Square for the country. She and Prince Arthur have a charming place in Surrey, built to their own designs and under Princess Arthur's personal supervision a few years ago, and here the Princess hopes to recuperate, spending as much time in the lovely garden she created as the weather will allow. She has invariably spent the early autumn at Mar Lodge, Braemar, for many years, and there is much disappointment among the folk on her estate—left to her by her mother — that she is obliged to be absent this year. Woman Golf Architect.

Everyone was glad to hear of Miss Molly Gourlay-'s victory in the Swedish ladies' golf championship. Possibly her task was not a very formidable one, and she seems to have won the final with consummate ease. But any success which comes in the way of this charming little lady always gives delight to her friends. She is probably the best woman golfer in England who has never succeeded in winning the ladies' open championship. She has recently taken up a rather unusual profession. She has joined a firm of golf architects, and in future she will spend much time laying down new courses and reconstructing old ones. ■ Her first job in this direction must have been rather a labour of love. For she was commissioned to reconstruct the last hole on her home course at Camberley, in Surrey. The old hole was something of a blemish on what is a very fine course, fof after driving down into the valley you were faced with a blind shot to the last green.