A MAID IN MAYFAIR

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 67, 20 March 1937, Page 3 (Supplement)

A MAID IN MAYFAIR

Brides at the Coronation Courts.

A BRILLIANT WOMAN M.P. EXPECTED.

(From Our London Lady Correspondent.)

ALL the Coronation Courts are likely tc be vary heavy ones. In addi-

tion to the official presentations, always specially numerous in an outstanding year lika the present one, there are an exceptionally large number of brides to make their curtsies. These are presentations which cannot very well be held over from one year to the next, and the Lord Chamberlain's department usually makes an effort to include all the young married women who riake applications for presentation. Mothers-in-law mjike the presentations in all these cases, so that, even if the luide's sister is going to Court as a

debutante, she herself is taken by her husband's mother and presented by her. The Royal Family are interested in a number of this year's appearances at Court, and the first Court is likely to be a specially interesting one. Hiding Her Light. It will occasion no surprise if the next general election brings a notable person to the ranks of women M.P.'s in the person of Lady Muir of Blair Drurnmond. As Nadeja Stancioff, before her marriage Lady Muir attained a reputation for diplomacy that was almost world-wide. She was the personal private secretary of Stamboulisky, the Bulgarian Prime Minister. Hers?lf the daughter of a Bulgarian Minister o London, it used to be stated that „• le, and not Stai.iboulisky, was the real ruler of the fortunes of Bulgaria. Xo greater contrast than the two afforded can be imagine,'. StambouiisKy was a -peasant and looked it, Xadeja Stancioff was tall, fair and refined. She acted as interpreter at the Geneva Conference and, being a wonderful linguist, she was the only woman who ever appeared" in that capacity on the platform of the League of Nations. Since her marriage, she i.as been hiding her light under the proverbial bushel, but it is felt that a woman of such outstanding gifts is hardly likely to disappear permanently from public life. "Finishing" in Germany. Several of the debutantes who are coming out at the Coronation Courts are finishing in Germany, rather than Paris or Florence. Bonn is a popular place this year, the girls wisely taking advantage of the opportunity to attend the university to obtain a good grounding in the language. They usually live '"as of the family" with society women, who encourage them to speak German in the family circle, arrange visits to places of interest, organise sports, parties and dances where the girls meet people who matter in the district. One "bud" went over last November, and had planned to spend Christmas in Germany, thrilling at the idea of a traditional Yuletide in the land of the Christmas tree. Influenza broke out and spread rapidly, however, so she was hurriedly, dispatched home. I

Coronation Visitors. Lord Baden-Powell is already making plans to act as host, as it were, to some three or four hundred boys representing the scout movement in India and the Dominions during the Coronation festivities. He has arranged for the boys to have a place of honour along the procession route, but does not yet knowexactly where they are to be posted. Contingents are expected from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Nigeria, Northern and Southern Rhodesia, Kenya, Ceylon, Cyprus, Trinidad, Malta, Gibraltar, Burma and India, and scouts in the Homeland have set themselves the happy task of making the visit as pleasant as possible. Those not taking part in the London programme have volunteered assistance in organising festivities throughout the British Isles, even to the smallest villages. They will have their depots with storekeepers and dispatch clerks, and they have a big job of work ahead in helping their chief to arrange sleeping accommodation for boys coming from a distance. To Hunt in Poland. News reached London of a big hunting party which is being arranged by the well" known Polish sportsman, Count Poteeki, at his castle at Lancut, in Ea3t Galicia. The castle is well known to members of London's smart set, many of whom go out winter after winter for wild boar hunting and pheasant shooting. But special interest lies in the present party because it is understood that the Duke of Windsor will be a member of it. Apart from the sporting side of the invitation, the most lavish entertaining goes on at the castle when the party returns to it in the evenings, and women who have gone out from England in other years have taken the smartest frocks they could buy in Paris in order to "compete" with the Continental guests invited. The Perfect House. There is to be no big international art exhibition at Burlington House for the early part of this year. Instead, the Royal Academy has organised an intriguing exhibition of British architecture in the hope that it will make a big appeal to women. Models of houses, plans of them, and photographs of the finished house shown on a plan will be a great feature, and there will be, in addition, opportunities for women to see how improvements to their present dwellings may be effected at a reasonable outlay. The - -man who is setting out to build a house of her own will be shown some of the pitfalls, and initiated into the advantages of certain planning and building methods, and she will also be able to see, from scale plans, how she can afford certain expenditure on curtains and such like things. There will be illustrations, in the exhibition, of the improvement which is gained when a garden harmonises with a house, and this is sure to prove of interest.