SEEING LONDON.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 210, 6 September 1939, Page 12

SEEING LONDON.

Queen Elizabeth Orders Light Menus.

(By JOAN LITTLEFIELD.) LONDON, August 30. Queen Elizabeth, who has just entered her fortieth year, became much slimmer on her American tour, largely because, in order to keep fit with so much train travel, she took a modified slimming diet, consisting largely of plenty o'f salads, green vegetables and fresh fruit.

Her slimness becomes her, so she is continuing to order light menus at Buckingham Palace and in Scotland lve courses instead of six are now served for dinner, and sweets have to contain fruit in some form. Peclie Melba, by the way, is one of the Queen's favourite dishes. In Scotland Her Majesty is resisting the allure of the large Scots' tea, with its plentiful display of scones and cakes.

The Queen never allows herself to become sunburnt—hence her parasols preferring to keep her natural milk-and-eomjdexion, which is enhanced only by the very lightest touches of rouge and lipstick. Historical Records. ? ver .«'* years ago, the British Broadcasting Corporation be<*au its recording service. Now it ha*" a library of over 75,000 records, including the voices of many of the great men o'f to-day and yesterday. Most of these records were made in Britain, but some have been obtained through the Interna Exchange of Records. The 8.». C. s department can make as many as three hundred records in a week Records required for the news bulletins can be made by a very quick resulting process. Thus a speech by iresident Roosevelt, not being generally relayed from America, can now be played back to English listeners immediately following its delivery. Among 'he historical records in the library is one of Mr. Gladstone, personally recorded by Edison in 1870. Another 1.4 of* Tennyson spea.king his own verse. > The wprds v ;'are quite inaudible, but - the rhythm is clearlv marked. Another treasure is W. B. Yeats reciting "Innisfree." and all the charm and wit of Bernard Shaw is retained in the recording of his speech in the "Whither Britain?" series. There is a record of Gandhi, in excellent English, giving a spiritual : message to the world, and another of Hitler on the occasion of his first- apeech to the Reichstag a*i Chancellor, sounding quieter and speaking in a lower register than he does now.

One of the most curious records in the collection was made by a bird. Seeking out curiosities for their "In Town To-night" series, the 8.8.C. came across a talking budgerigar, whose speciality was nursery rhyme*. They have recorded him reciting "Miss Moffatt" and other favourites, and his contribution must be heard to be believed.

Percy J. Dobell, the seventeenth century book expert, who recently sold his private collection of Dry den—the finest in this country—to an American university, keeps a bookshop in Tunbridge Wells and is training his son to succeed hint in the business.

Mr. Dobell had a business in Bruton Street, London, for many years and hag always collected rare books. The son of Bertram Dobell, a minor poet of the nineteenth century, 'he is bent, grizzled and rather timid and i 9 genuinely devoted to literature. He has been much influenced by his close friend and customer, the. late George Thorn-Drury, recorder of Dover, and helped him to form what ended by being one of the richest collections of Restoration literature ever possessed by one man. Trees With a Story. Lord Jersey is going" to plant in the 500 acres adjoining his Georgian mansion, Osterley Park, trees and plants which have a history. He hopes to include in the collection a cypress descended from a bough which fell in the s.tiMt from the Duke of Wellington's funeral car; a slip of-.the catalpa, which Bacon is said to have planted in his garden; a cutting of the mulberry tree from Keats* house in Hamstead, beside which ho is'said to have written his "Ode to a Nightingale"; and an offspring of the apple tree in Sir Isaac Newton's garden at Woolthorpe, from which, perhaps, that famous apple fell upon his head..-;

Osterley Park is said to possess the largest %ariety of trees of any home in England. It is open to the public together with the house, several days a weeJc during the summer. Osterley House is one of Robert Adam's finest buildings. Its construction and furnishing, whieh began, in 1761, took 20 years to complete. It contains a fine collection of 18th century paintings, and included among its furniture is one of the most sumptuous pieces in existence—the bed de;rigped by Robert Adam in 1775 for .Mr*. Francis Child, wife of the banker who, after paying for it, tore up the bill, saying no one must know how much it coat.- •'

According to advance Norman Hartnell models, skirts will be even shorter this fall, with an accentuated waistline and high necks for daytime. He shows the bustle influence, already noted in Paris, some of his gowns, with fullness at the back, being inspired by the 1880's. The few crinolines are fuller than ever, over whaleboned underskirts. Emphasis, by means of embroidery and squared shoulders, will crcate the smaller waist illusion.

One of Mr. Hartnell's newest colours is snail grey. He also favours one of the Queen's favourite shades—a soft silver grey.- Ee says that young women should learn to wear grey, whieh is a lovely colour not meant only for the middleaged and elderly.

A striking day fashion of his is a. crepe dress in a new dirty mauve shade,' embroidered with pink sequins.