MALE GUESTS SWAMP DUKE

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31316, 11 March 1967, Page 13

MALE GUESTS SWAMP DUKE

(N.Z. Press Assn. —Copyright) SYDNEY, Mar. 10. The Duke of Edinburgh went to a rollicking Australianstyle party last night. The drinks flowed, the prawns came by the plateful —and the male guests bunched apart from the ladies.

In the middle of a solid crowd of men stood the Duke —while the ladies clutched their glasses and watched a little wistfully from the fringes. There were many more men than women among the ( 350 guests at the Common- • wealth Study Conference cocktail party in the grand ball- ’ room of Sydney’s New Went- • worth Hotel.

But the ladies, dressed in their smartest cocktail frocks, had no hope of getting anywhere near Prince Philip. The leaders of industry, the business and professional men, and the senior public servants, who formed the bulk of the guests, took all his attention. In more than an hour at the cocktail party, the Duke did not meet or speak to any woman. The one who came closest to him was a waitress who hovered around with a dish of savouries. Prince Philip did not accept any, but he did have two glasses of gin and tonic. Afterwards, one lady guest said: “I would very much have liken to have spoken to the Duke. But there were too many men around him."