SIXTY YEARS AGO

Ellesmere Guardian, Volume LVIII, Issue 67, 24 August 1937, Page 6

SIXTY YEARS AGO

RECOLLECTIONS OF DISRAELI.

STATESMAN SUFFERS FROM A

"HANG-OVER."

(From The Guardian's Special Corres-

pondent— By Air Mail)

LONDON, July 31

Close friend to Disraeli, wife of a famous soldier and frequent visitor to the Court of Queen Victoria, Mrs Edith Buxton spent the first 60 years of her life in luxury, the spoiled and pampered darling of Society. To-day, nearly 90 years old, she lives in a tiny house in Barnet, Hertfordshire, widowed, and nearly blind. With her dog beside her, she was planting cabbages in her back garden.

She straightened her back, smiled and said: "Thirty years ago it would have seemed impossible that I should be doing this. I hardly knew that poor people existed then. I wasn't brought up to do anything for myself, and you see," she pointed ruefully to her crooked row of cabbages, "I'm not really much good at it.

"I never quite knew how it all happened. Shares, money, something went wrong somewhere, but when I was young, girls weren't supposed to know anything about business. So I left it all to my husband, and when he died I found myself in a nice mess.

"Relatives? Oh, they're scattered all over the world, and most of my old friends don't know what has happened to me. I'm rather glad. I wouldn't like them to know how bad I am at doing simple jobs."

Among the poorer people of Barnet Mrs Buxton is a great favourite. Children flock to her house to hear tales of Queen Victoria and Disraeli.

"I remember," she said, "the time when I found 'Dizzy' lying on a couch with his hands clasped to his head. I asked him what was the matter, and he just looked at me and laughed and said 'Burgundy.' He had what you young people would call a 'hang-over.' Then there was the time when I set to work to make a set of antimacassars for him because his ~wife, who was at school

with me, said that he made her sofas in such a mess with all the brilliantine he used. 'Dizzy' asked me to make them in as bright colours as I could —he loved colours. When I had made them he sent all his friends tQ

ask me to make some for them." Her little dog has been trained to growl when he hears the word "Gladstone," and to bark delightedly when he hears "Disraeli." "You know, I'm really very happy," she said.