Current Gossip

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 72, 18 December 1937, Page 21

Current Gossip

Miss Mary Somerville, director of school broadcasting at the 8.8. C., has just returned from a visit to Tokio, where sbo attended a conference ef educational associations. She was very impressed by the new mpthods of feedin" and exercise for Japanese children. Fathers bad pointed out to her the strong, straight limbs of their younger children and the “thin, spindly’’ legs of the older children who had not had the benefit of this new system.

Christmas gift suggestion—a fur or fur coat from Fur Tailors, Ltd., 63 Manners Street, or, failing that, have your wife’s present coat repaired or remodelled if necessary by the foremost fur workers in the Dominion. Our expert, recently returned from overseas, has many new ideas. *

Wooden and pottery-ware animate are popular novelties for Christmas gifts. They come singly, in pairs and in families," and range from dogs, geese and penguins to rabbits and pelicans.

The Oxford Tailors specialise in all branches of ladies’ tailoring. Tel. 45-330. “Evening Post” Building.

Very original jewellery is being fashioned from the lovely hand-made filigree metal discs once used inside watches. Each piece is at least 100 years old, and broodies, clips, and rings of this unusual material can be bought quite cheaply. '

Distinction and individuality are yours if you have your summer frocks and gowns designed and made by Maud Berry, 33 Willis Street, famed for her thrilling dress ideas.

Jjt ♦ ! 4 Table lamps and ash trays to match are the latest. A Sydney shop showed them in bronze with the parchment shade in buttercup. >Jr ♦ *

Expert tuition in violin or stage at Murison Bourn Studios, 360 Lambton Quay. .« » *

Britain’s oldest woman, Mrs. Emma Coate, who lives near Taunton, in Somerset, celebrated her 10" th birthday recently. “I doubt if modern girls enjoy themselves half as much as I did when I was young,” is her opinion. “They are too refined. Everybody is getting too refined. They don’t begin to know how to enjoy themselves.”

Summer calls for renewed activities on the part of home dressmakers, so learn the basic principles of cut, design and style, as taught by the Hollywood School of Dressmaking, 43 Manners Street. Tel. 44-311.

Clips from Paris to wear anywhere that fancy dictates —on the dress, belt, hair or ears —are inspired by the signs of the Zodiac. The signs are reproduced in gold or silver on coloured jewel-stones. Others are made in gems set in silver or platinum.

A Merry Christmas —unmarred by any thought of washday drudgery. The Ideal Bagwash is to take care of your laundry troubles from now on. Tel. 63-000.

A cardboard drinking cup covered with scarlet-cellophane makes an excellent flower-pot for the Christmas tree. Fill it with coloured pastilles wrapped in clear cellophane and wire it on to the branches.

Old or new floors finished with iterfeet ballroom surface by Dominion Floor Surfacing Co.. 54-962.

Robin and Co., 17 Grey Street, have just unpacked a splendid old oak Welsh dresser. It really is a beauty, and in perfect order. It has nice roomy drawers, with the original brass handles. Two small cupboards flank either side of the high back with its gently curving shelves and lovely beaded top. At present it looks marvellous, dressed with a display of willow pattern china, some bearing the antique dealers’ stamp and some-modern pieces.

Our beaches certainly will be gay this summer. The new flowered bathing .suits have taken the public by storm. Wilson’s, 52 Willis Street, have an exciting selection in a riot of colours, flowered, spotted, striped or plain.

One of the real success stories among fashions of the past few years has been the three-piece suit. It has climbed amd climbed. It is one of the types definitely “set” by its recurrence in model collections. It is too practical to give *

Some of the latest jewellery is made of ostrich feathers. The plumage is mounted with jewels and used for earrings and bracelets to match plumage scarves.

The Jure of lovely house linen draws every woman. For Christmas gift suggestions of real value consult Pamela Harris, 27 Cambridge Terrace. A bracelet for wearing with tweeds is made of heavy gilt links plaited with leather. Another novelty is a brooch in the form of a tiny gold pincushion, stuck with gilt “pins” each having a different coloured enamel head.

Summer frocks cut out, stitched, or completely made, by Hollywood, 43 Mercer Street. Tel. 44-311.

A putty-coloured tobacco jar fashioned after a coil of rope, the lid topped off with a bright blue anchor, makes .Tn intriguing gift for the yachtsman.

Only one week to go—so order your Christmas poultry now from Salisbury's, 80 Dixon Street. For the freshest poultry and eggs—Hutt grown—ring 51-0-10.

The latest watch-straps are made from elephant’s hair, woven with gold thread. The bands are strong and flexible.

Flowers! Let flowers say your Christmas greeting to your friends, especially to those in other parts. Telephone 45-396, St. George Floral Studio, Hotel St. George Buildings, and they will promptly execute your order anywhere, any time. Book your floral greetings now.

An idea for Christmas—boxed stationery and a linen-boun'd album for the holiday snapshots.

Youth Co-operates

Practical Help For Overseas

IByL. H. Wood.) - ZEALAND is a small country, and its population is also small, and like so many small things, perhaps a trifle self-satisfied. We like people to come here and say that our scenery is too marvellous, and that we speak the purest English in the Empire, and that the world casts an admiring and envious eye on our legislative experiments. It makes us feel all grand and cosmic. Minor complaints about bad cooking and dowdy women are too trivial to be taken seriously.

But to anyone capable of taking a ■wider and longer view, we have still a few weaknesses that could be beneficially tackled from within. And the first great weakness that, in such a small country, is glaringly apparent, is the lack of co-operation between the various devices for improvement, both in sympathy and effort. All social service should surely have as its goal some recognition of the fact that it should be as easy to bind people together by their fundamental likenesses as by their superimposed differences. If the cords that bind us are strong and universal, it adds a zest to life that some should be wreathed in fruit and flowers and some uncompromisingly unadorned. It would be a tragic, dull day if individuality were crushed out of existence.

Many people confuse individuality with individualism, and dictators try in their muddled way to stamp out both; but there is one thing they are not muddled about, and that is the necessity of instilling their training very early. We must begin with the young.

All these rather jumbled thoughts hovere'd in my mind at the Wellington Girl Guides’ campfire on Saturday, December 11. It was a perfect evening and a perfect setting high on a hill looking down on the land-locked, harbour and away out to the open sea. The Guides formed an eager ring round the campfire within their circle, each tossing her little candle to make the flames leap higher, while a clear voice called:

‘‘Krom north, south, east and west, sparks appear to light tlie beacon of friendship, kindliness, and peace. To those now far away across the water who are under the shadow of misfortune, we offer our tokens of help and send thoughts of goodwill and peace. From this beacon may the spirit of goodfellowship between peoples of different races spread his wings and soar to the four corners of the earth.”

Beautiful words and beautiful symbolism. In the hush that followed for a moment, the flames flared up and one felt that something real and true was indeed speeding on its way.

It was heartening to reflect that at this time all over the country similar ■beacons were alight—the guides of New Zealand doing something as one man to help the Red Cross alleviate suffering In the Far East —in fact, co-operating! The Chief Commissioner’s few words toward the end struck tlie right note. She stressed the feeling of “oneness” with the whole wide world aud with all other guides in New Zealand, all doing the same thing at the same time that night, and responding without hesitation to the appeal from the Red Cross to help in the alleviation of pitiful suffering.

_ Lights were springing up over the city and dusk was softly falling as “Taps” was sung—clear, shrill music that can reach the deafest ears and thrill tlie most prosaic heart. It seemed a hopeful sign that a movement which devotes itself to the training of youth in initiative and character chiefly by means of happy, unfettered open-air association should not be closed to sympathy for suffering even though far off, and should, in co-opera-tion with another world-wide movement, send its practical help far overseas.

These beacons, lighted at the same moment all over New. Zealand, show not only the value of concerted effort and tlio picturesqueness of a charming ceremony, but also point to an idc/tlism and breadth of vision that seems denied to many who wish to set their mark on the young. May the spirit of guiding spread ever upward and outward, and may its beacon never sink to the cold grey ashes of disillusion, and may those who expound it never fall by the wayside overcome by formalism and hampered by ghorjj aiiht,