ELLEN TERRY'S HAPPIEST YULETIDES.

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 149, 21 December 1926, Page 26

ELLEN TERRY'S HAPPIEST YULETIDES.

"Some of my happiest Yuletide memories," said Dame Ellen Terry, "go back to the time when I was' a tiny mite roaming all over the country with my father and mother, who were strolling actors. Those were days of poverty and hardship, when the family purge was often pitifully empty; but, luckily, I had the best of mothers, who took care that, whatever she went without, her children should have their Christmas fun. And so, wherever we chanced to be, often in the poorest of lodgings, wo always had our Christmas tree and frolic, and such seasonable delicacies as she could provide. „.-.' "Of course, our Christmas tree was a poor thing—a branch or two-of green-' cry of some sort, with a few coloured glass balls and lighted candles on it. But to us children it vraa a glimpse of fairyland, round which we danced with the whole-hearted joy that only children know. And I always—like my sisters—had a new frock for the occasion—a simple dainty thing,of muslin, which.my dear mother made with her own hands, often stitching away at it until the early hours of the morning. ' 'My first proper Christmas party was when I was. about twelve, and I can still recall the pleasure with which I surveyed myself, from my pretty frock to my golden hair, in the glass' before starting for Half Moon street, where the.party was held."