English Horse-Brasses Come To Addington

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30395, 20 March 1964, Page 2

English Horse-Brasses Come To Addington

Horse-brasses to be added to her family’s collection were the souvenirs sought out by Miss Maralin Dunn, of Christchurch, during her 15-mcnth trip overseas recently. Among those she posted home was one with Shakespeare’s head on it, from Stratford-on-Avon, and another bearing an outline of Coventry Cathedral, bought at Coventry.

Not all were genuine antique brasses, but they made a fine addition to the array, now numbering 54, which is a feature in the hall of her family’s home at Addington.

London, with its many art exhibitions and Design Centre, was a paradise for Miss Dunn, who has inherited a family interest in arts and crafts. “Though I myself am mainly an admirer of other people's work,” she said yesterday. Her father is a sculptor, her mother a potter, and director of the Christchurch Craft Centre, and an uncle in England teaches art and craft at a college in Yorkshire. Miss Dunn herself, is chiefly interested in linocuts, and fabric printing. Her English unde, with whom she spent Christmas while she was away, gave her a “do-it-yourself” present for Christmas: a square of material for a headscarf, and a lesson in “tiedyeing,” to decorate it In tie-dyeing, a number of pebbles were tied into a piece of material, and it was then dyed, patterns being made by the creases in the doth. After drying, the process could be repeated. She was looking

forward to trying the technique out again,” she said. “Poking around the little shops in Soho,” was a keen pleasure she found in London. It was a wonderful area, with its cosmopolitan atmosphere, small shops, some selling craft work, and the many foreign restaurants. Chinese Best

She tried many of these restaurants, and Chinese food remained her favourite. “I love cooking, it’s one of my

hobbies,” she said. “I collected one or two recipes, but I haven’t had time to try them out yet.” Attending the memorial service to the late President John Kennedy, in St Paul’s Cathedral, London, was one of her most memorable experiences. “It was one of the most moving things I have ever known.”

The grey foggy day seemed to mirror the feelings of the enormous crowd which crammed the cathedral, including the crypt “I waited four hours to get in. But it was worth it,” said Miss Dunn. Big Changes

Revisiting her home dty of Birmingham, which she had not seen since leaving England with her family when she was 11, Miss Dunn found she scarcely knew it “1 thought I would know my way round, once I got to the Bull Ring—but everything had changed so much, with many new roads,” she said.

The highlight of a trip to Europe was a cable-car ride at San Moritz, Switzerland. “I think we particularly liked Switzerland because its scenery reminded us of New Zealand.” For though she “could never get tired of London,” and will miss the opera, ballet and musical shows, New Zealand was still the country to live in, said Miss Dunn.