IN BRITAIN NOW!

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 108, 8 May 1937, Page 5 (Supplement)

IN BRITAIN NOW!

By AGNES L. WINSKILL

TT is May, and for the second time in three years thoughts of this month bring with them thoughts of England. The last memorable May was that of the Jubilee Year and 1937's 12th of May will find fame. too, under the fascinating title Coronation Day. The eyes of the world are on London town, for it is the setting of England's fairy tale brought to life. State banquets and balls and innumerable other functions usher in the new season, and on the eventful 12th Cinderella's gilded coach leaves Buckingham Palace to drive through the crowded streets and squares whose very names breathe romance — along the Mall, Trafalgar Square and Whitehall. Within the coach are a King and his Queen, who short months ago had thought their reigning days uncertain cr at least many years ahead. Then Westminster Abbey. . . . After months of preparation the Abbey is ready, illuminated by artificial daylight, and behind its aged walls all the pageantry beloved of the Englishman rolls up from the years that are gone, and a King and a Queen are crowned. A Princess is there, too; she is fair and blue-eyed, as should all princesses be, and in life is our dream princess come true. At last—far, far too long a time to those patient, loyal subjects who line the r6ute back to the Palace—the Monarch a*nd his lady occupy the coach again and the extended return journey is begun by way of more familiar thoroughfares with magic, picturesque names—along Cockspur Street, Pall Mall. St. James' Street and Piccadilly, at length through the Marble Arch and Hyde Park to Constitution Hill. The streets are decorated; all manner of festoons flutter above the people's heads, and the spirit of festival is in the air. By night, London's friendly buildings show their faces by floodlight and transform the city's hub to fairyland indeed I So does Britain celebrate, Britain as an Empire and a nation, but the individual Englishman is celebrating, too, by the tending of a red geranium, planted carefully that it might show its gay colour on Coronation Day. In London itself, where trade and business must go on, the hardy flower finds its life-giving soil in a window box, and the city is flower-bedecked, the grime and drabness of the work-a-day week hidden quite away. As the coach goes by each blossom bows and curtseys in the breeze and says, so clearly, so plainly, "An English hand planted me here by order of an English heart, and to-day I bloom for you alone and for that which you represent," that those to whom the message is directed cannot fail to understand.

But can this really be the centre of the world's trade and the stage of the world's affairs? Can the typewriters be clicking still and the telephones ringing and fortunes being made and lost? Can the statesmen—famous statesmen whose names will one day be the names of history—have the problems of countries to concern them now; can they be discussing treaties and disarmament and the way to end war? Why, everything here is a symbol of peace and beauty! There is only love in the people's hearts and only laughter in their eyes!

And over the horizon come the ships of all nations; —not the grey, dread ships of war, but neat, trim vessels, loaded with a gay, expectant, human cargo. Travellers and curious sightseers are among them, and crowned heads of other lands; for many reasons the world flocks to the crowning of England's King, but the Empire ships bring the happiest crowds of all, for here are England's children—"coming home." Little grimy ships ride the waves, and too, big, grubby merchant ships with their holds stacked with Coronation souvenirs. Into foreign ports and foreign waters, into distant harbours where the Union Jack flies proudly; for months past they have steamed into far corners of the earth—east, west, north, and down to the little green "Britain of the South."

But now all the outward voyagings are over. The little ships and the big, with their passengers or their newly-laden cargoes, follow the sea trail home again, the last trip before the twelfth of May. Here are the last arrivals before the all-important day of this year.

Those who are left behind in the scattered lands of the Empire—in our own New Zealand—smile and hide their disappointmen*- To them has fallen the task of "minding" their little country, and they mean to remain true to their trust. But "the twelfth," all the same, is to be a big day for them. No doubt every garden patch in Maoriland has a flourishing red geranium plant, and now it has a new significance. The red geranium is to be a symbol, as is the white flower of Mother's Day and the scarle* poppy of our soldiers. Each breeze passing through the garden will send our thoughts away to a far, dear land.

Then the evening of the twelfth shall come. Young and old will be gathered together, perhaps in city flat or suburban home; perhaps in homely "way-back" kitchen. But all, wherever they may be, will have their full attention claimed by that which man has called a radio; for, at the appointed hour, the voice of their King, His Majesty George VI., will come to them across the dividing land and sea.