GOTHIC PAST COCOS

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27213, 3 December 1953, Page 11

GOTHIC PAST COCOS

Duke Plays Deck Hockey [From Reuter's Special Correspondent on the Gothic)

(Rec. 11.30 p.m.) December 2. The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh saw their first film, on the Gothic last night. It was “Genevieve,” a story of the “old crocks” motor race from London to Brighton. * During the afternoon the showers, which had lashed the ship in the morning, cleared, and in sunshine the Queen watched the Duke playing as captain of a deck hockey team composed of members of the Royal Household. The team won several games against a team of Royal Navy officers. Cocos Island, north-east of the Galapagos Islands was sighted abeam on the starboard side. The island was seen through a double rainbow in light rain. In the evening there was a violent rainstorm. After Cocos Island, the next landfall will be the Marquesas Islands, at which the Gothic is due to arrive on the night of December 9. The Gothic is now six hours behind G.M.T., making breakast-time aboard the ship 3 o’clock in the afternoon—-tea-time in Britain. Overcast and rainy weather is expected for the next few days. The Queen and the Duke spent the morning quietly in their private apartments and on deck as the Gothic steamed at more than 16 knots through heavy rainstorms. Members of their household joined the Queen and Duke at lunch in the Royal dining room.