CURRENT NOTES

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25629, 19 October 1948, Page 2

CURRENT NOTES

The High Commissioner for New Zealand in London (Mr W. H. Jordan) has forwarded to the Minister of Defence (Mr F. Jones) 1 letter frbm the Duke of Edinburgh thanking the Royal New Zealand Navy for the dinghy it presented to Princess Elizabeth and the Duke as a wedding gift. “I was most impressed with its construction and finish and J can assure you it will be extremely useful to/us.” wrote the Duke of Edinburgh. “We have called the dinghy ‘Kiwi’ and hope this will meet the approval of all who so kindly provided this splenuid gift.” —(P.A.) Princess Margaret has givea orders to three prominent dress designers for costumes for the Royal tour of Australia Molyneux is working on more -an 3.0 costumes. Norman Hartnell and Miss Ford have orders for others. Breakfast mats and matching table napkins which are to be used by the Royal Family when staying at Government House next March were shown in a collection of fine needlework by her Excellency Lady Freyberg at a women’s meeting in Wellington last week. Both mats and napkins, which were hand worked bv two Wellington women, are of fine white linen with a border design of one of the traditional Maori rafter patterns skilfully stitched with henna, red, and black thread. Twenty-four members of the music circle of the Canterbury Women’s Club, under the direction of the leader of the circle (Mrs Anita Ledsham) visited Ashburton at the invitation of members of the Cavendish Club anjd presented an opera, “In an Oriental Tea Garden,” which was very well received by a large audience. Mrs W. R. Ryburn (president of the Cavendish Club) welcomed the visitors and thanked them for the entertainment, (president of the Canterbury Women’s Club) expressed appreciation of the hospitality of the hostesses, who provided tea and supper for the guests.

Mr N. H. Black, the Ponsonby and Auckland Rugby player who was recently selected as one of the team to tour South Africa next year, was married in Auckland on Saturday to Miss Pamela Lock, of Penrose. Mrs E. Bowden gave a report of the district convention at the monthly meeting of the Spreydon branch of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. Special mention was made of the outstanding address given by Mrs C. R. N. Mackie on the world convention of the union in America. One of the delegates at the district convention, speaking to the resolution on peace, had suggested that a Minister of Peace be appointed in New Zealand, said Mrs Bowden. Mrs Ancell (president) presided, and Mrs Murray gave the temperance fact. Mesdames Ancell and Woodcock were appointed visitors to the Mental Hospital. Long service badges were presented to Mesdames E. Childs. A. C. Gadd and Miss M. Lili at the half-yearly council meeting of the Mid-Canterbury Federation of Women’s Institutes held at Rakaia recently. Mrs R. Pearce (president) made the presentations. The teaching staff of the Shirley Methodist Sunday school organised an evening social in honour of Miss Pat Haffenden, who is to be married soon. A Avail mirror was presented to Miss Haffenden by Mr G. H. Rogerson on behalf of her fellow teachers, and Miss M. Holland presented her with a fruit dish from the Girls’ Life Brigade. “A jolly woman in black” is how a London newspaper describes Miss Dorothy Tangney, Australia’s woman Senator, who is in London on her first visit. Miss Tangney spent a holiday in New Zealand several months ago. At 37, Miss Tangney is the first woman senator ever elected and the only woman in the Australian Parliamentary Party here for the conferences, states the “Standard.” Her constituency of Western Australia is roughly a third of the entire Commonwealth. It takes her three months to go round it by horse and jeep. Since her election five years ago. Senator Tangney has given up her job as teacher. She gets a salary of £l5OO. Already mdre than £2OO had been raised for the Jean Stevenson Memorial Fund, which will be used to train girls in Y.W.C.A. work, said Miss A. Louise? Burton, who is visiting Dunedin. She added that it was hoped that about £BOO would be available to start about eight girls on the new eight months’ training course that was planned for next year. These £lOO bursaries would be of great assistance to the girls selected, who would have to take a theoretical course at Wellington. as well as take a practical course of training at one of the local Young Women’s Christian Associations. Miss Burton said she had been interviewing young people from Whangarei to Dunedin who wished to take the new training course next year, but the association particularly wanted as recruits people with experience in some other position or with a university education, as it was thought that these people would be of most use later in teaching the various youth groups of the community. Next year’s clothes for women would not camouflage the figure. Women today did not have to be completely camouflaged to be attractive, said Edith Head, Paramount studio fashion designer in Hollywood, when predicting the 1949 silhouette. This was the first generation of women to have perfect figures. Girls just weren’t allowed to grow up less than perfect to-day. If they were too fat or too thin or bow-legged they were taken to a doctor. she said. Women would not have to be a certain type or sophisticated to look well in the 1949 clothes. No skirt would be lower than 12 inches from the ground. Square necklines would come in. This neckline was particularly good on the broad-shouldered, high-busted woman. Sleeves would be elbow length and the waist would stay where nature put it she predicted.

A request by the Australian drapers’ shop assistants that they be given a dress allowance so that they may face customers fittingly attired will be discussed at the federal conference of the Shop Assistants’ and Warehouse Employees’ Union this month. After a struggle that lasted 30 years, women in Chile were able to celebrate Women’s Suffrage Week last month. Members of the Chilean Federation of Women’s Clubs, led by the wife of the president, Mrs Rosa Gonzalez Videla, crowded the galleries of the Chilean Congress, determined that the bill should pass. Their executive president, Anita Figueroa, said: “If the bill is not passed soon, we will have women in gaol and broken glass in the streets.” Mrs Videla. as the president’s wife, spends about seven hours a day answering letters from Chile’s housewives, whose queries range from recipe problems to finding a new house. One of the stranggst letters she has had was from a woman who wanted the president’s old brown suit, so that her husband could wear it on a religious pilgrimage.