AROUND LONDON WITH ANNE DONNELLY Christmas Shopping On H.P.

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30943, 27 December 1965, Page 2

AROUND LONDON WITH ANNE DONNELLY Christmas Shopping On H.P.

Millions of British families had their Christmas on H.P. this

year. And they did not

have to brave the cold or the milling masses to do their shopping. They lazed by the fire and gloated over glossy mail-order catalogues.

Pretty well everything nonperishable you can think of could be had for the writing away: shoes and toys and dishwashers and whisky, gin and wine—to say nothing of Christmas trees, puddings and turkevs.

The big mail-order houses expected to hand out more than £lOO million worth of Christmas credit this year. The average order was about £lO, though some went up to £5(l Next Christmas, some people could still be paying for this Christmas. Orders can be sent off with no payment enclosed .Most goods can be had on approval. The pay-off is usually at the rate of a shilling in the pound a week. And there is sometimes a 20 per cent discount on usual retail prices. The cost of postage and postal orders involved in paying off is refunded. The snag is the limited

range of brands to choose from. But the system is a godsend to many people: to the housebound mother, who can buy nappies and cots under it, too; and for the weaker of us, who find it easier to pay up when impelled to rather than save up when it would be merely desirable. Besides the mail-order firms, London’s speciality shops and store gift departments organised postal buying this year on a far bigger scale than ever before. Again the range was wide —from people-eating Piranhas in bowls to mechanical card shufflers. (I do not know how the Post Office deal with the fish.) * » * For The Cook For personal shoppers with enterprising cooks in mind, there were three superb books to choose from this Christmas. The 512-page “Robert Carrier Cookbook” (Nelson, £6 6s), has gorgeous colour photographs and delectable, if generally rather expensive, dishes. Mr Carrier is the doyen of English journalist-cooks. He writes for the “Sunday Times” colour supplement. Escoffier’s “Ma Cuisine” (Hamlyn, 255), translated by Vyvyan Holland, has thorough explanations and precise

recipes. It is a bargain. “Cooking is Child’s Play” (Collins, 30s) by Michel Oliver has an introduction by Jean Cocteau. It is a big book with 40 select recipes aimed at discriminating cooks. *- # * Butlin’s Camps Bookings at Butlin’s camps bear sad testimony to the degeneration of the family spirit in contemporary Christmases. There are mostly elderly couples among the more than 18,000 people who are paying £l3 for five days at one of the three Butlin camps or hotels. A Women’s Institute conference was recently held at the Butlin holiday camp in Somerset. But “the garish and rather phoney festive decorations” hardly provided the right surroundings for a W.I. meeting, wrote Lady Anne Wai degrave, editor of the Somerset W.I. magazine, when she thanked Sir Billy Butlin for his hospitality. « # New Pantomime A rare sort of children’s pantomime opened last week. Called “The Thwarting of Baron Bolligrew,” it will run in the unlikely company of “Hamlet,” “Henry V” and Pinter’s “The Homecoming” —the current repertoire of the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Aldwych Theatre. The pantomime is by Robert Bolt, author of “A Man for All Seasons,” the play about St. Thomas More which will soon be filmed. Mr Bolt has just done the film version of “Dr. Zhivago” and “Bolligrew” was meant as light relief. The pantomime is about Sir Oblong Fitz-Oblong and how he tries to free an island from .a tyrannical baron and a man-eating dragon. The dragon dies of mulligrubs—the usual fate of dragons when the tips of their tails are cut off.

Mr Bolt will play the dragon off-stage. He will use “a sinister, cultivated voice” to portray this “figure of ultimate, unrelieved evil.” Leo McKern plays the title role. ♦ * * Ideal Wife Controversy wafts through the Establishment on the desirability of elegance and beauty in a Prime Minister’s wife. “An elegant young woman with meltingly beautiful hazel eyes” was the frivolous description given Madame Helle Krag, wife of the Danish Prime Minister, in a newspaper profile recently. She was an actress, fond of Chekhov, now has two children and makes one film a year. She married her husband in 1955 after 10 meetings spread over one month. “The English,” wrote a correspondent to the paper in question, “lean towards solid qualities in their leaders. In a Prime Minister’s wife they prefer the character and brains of Lady Macmillan,

Lady Douglas-Home, and even Mrs Baldwin to an elegant shape.” Not so, demure the “Guardian.” Most men would regard a hazel witch as a bonus, whatever their profession. However, admits the papers, most men have bosses to be buttered up and come across coppers who have to be conned out of imposing traffic summonses. Free of a boss and immune from parking fines, a Prime Minister perhaps can afford to indulge “solid quality.” Mr Wilson does anyway: his wife’s name was even canvassed for the Oxford professorship of poetry. The question, concludes the “Guardian,” is the deployment of such wifely ability, sj: sfc sis “Viva Maria” Look Courreges is going to run into opposition on his home ground this week. “Viva Maria” with Brigitte Bardot and Jeanne Moreau is having its premiere in Paris and 120 shops in Paris and the provinces are ready to launch the “Viva Maria” look. It te a frilly, feminine style. Lacy blouses, wide, tight belts and longish, full skirts. With its pastel colours, the style has been quite an inspiration in the French spring ready-to-wear collections. It is totally contrary to Courreges’s stark, black and white sculptures. Some fashion experts say the “Viva Maria” look will be a hit. Others probably rightly—forecast merely temporary popularity for “Viva Maria” accessaries and bric-a-brac. * ♦ ♦ Top Of Pops An Australian group, “The Seekere,” te top of the pops this week. And the group’s record beat a new Beatles’ disc for the place. It te the first time for two years that a new Beatles’ record has not gone straight to the top Of the Melody Mtker chart. The Seekers’ record, “The Carnival Is Over,” was written by Dusty Springfield’s brother, Tom. The group of four Australians—Judith Durham, Athol Guy, Keith Potger and Bruce Woodley—an their early twenties came to London nearly two years ago on the Fair Sky. They worked their passage by playing in the ship’s lounge each night. They are folk singers, not a beat group. Their success is much due to their Welsh manager, Eddie Jarrett, who financed their first recording.