Warm London Welcome For Mr T. L. Macdonald

Press, Volume C, Issue 29480, 5 April 1961, Page 22

Warm London Welcome For Mr T. L. Macdonald

[From the London Correspondent of “The Press’’]

LONDON, March 24. The new High Commissioner in London, Mr T. L. Macdonald, and Mrs Macdonald could not have had a heartier welcome to the city than the reception they shared this week with the Prime Minister, Mr Holyoake. An impressive representation from the British Cabinet led unexpectedly by Mr Macmillan himself, arrived at the Savoy Hotel to bid farewell to the Prime Minister and wished Mr Macdonald well in his new post. Their hosts were the deputy High Commissioner, Mr G. R. Laking, and Mrs Laking, fulfilling one of their last official social engagements in London. They filled the white-walled and mirrored River Room of the Savoy overlooking the Thames with one of the brightest New

Zealand parties in London in recent years. All the Commonwealth High Commissioners arrived, there was a strong delegation of service heads led by the Chief of the Defence Staff, Lord Mountbatten. recently returned from New Zealand and Australia. and a corps of distinguished New Zealanders, visiting and resident. The Macdonalds are well pleased with the official residence they have moved into and warmly praised the arrangements made for their arrival and settling in. Only the High Commissioner complained mildly about his first cold in two years which his arrival in London immediately brought him. He said that a London spring, especially in the surroundings of Regent’s Park which, like the garden of the residence nearby is gay with early

flowers, was a fair compensation. To stay with them during their first week-end in London came their daughter, Mrs F. R. P. Osborne, with her two-year-old granddaughter, Victoria, whom they were seeing for the fli'st time. Mrs Osborne lives at Guildford, Surrey. The High Commissioner is now beginning to work his way through a long list of diplomatic calls that he must make on the other Commonwealth High Commissions and cn the ambassadors of countries with which New Zealand has close connexions. He will also visit the Palace for an audience with the Queen. This week Mr Laking was received in audience by the Queen —not as retiring High Commissioner but as “Her

Majesty's Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary for New Zealand in Washington.”