QUEEN IN EAST END

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 24, 27 July 1929, Page 20

QUEEN IN EAST END

SCENES AT SHOREDITCH

When the Queen opened the now Girl." 1 Hostel in Hoxton street. Shoreditch, on 13th June, it was revealed that Her .Majesty had given more than half the cost of the institution. The total cost of the hostel, said Lady Bertha Dawkins, at the opening, was £16,000, and of that sum. the Queen had contributed £ 8100. "The Queen," said Lady Bertha 'was the first contributor to the building when she gave £100, and then she gavo £0000 from the proceeds of the exhibition of her doll house at Wembley. Last autumn, when we did not know which way to turn for further £200* >'he Ueeu gav3 us another The ceremony had originally been arranged for a Saturday, but as Hoxton street is one of the biggest street markets of this part of the East End, it had been postponed till a Thursday. Saturday is naturally the coster's busy day and a Eoyal visit would mean the temporary closing of the market. Representations were made on behalf of the costers, with the result that the ceremony was held on the early closing day. s The costers' gratitude was without bounds, says the "Daily Telegraph." Early in the afternoon they cleared their stalls away and washed the street so energetically with hosepipes that not a trace of a street markei was to be "c™- T The, oncers of the Shoreditch Street Traders' Association put on their resplendent badges—or, more precisely sashes—of office and waited in a body at the hostel door for the Queen. Among them wore a couple of "pearlies, one o^ whom was labelled ''the Pearly King,"' though his dynasty appears not to ba recognised by the more democratic society of street traders who are content to be mere secretaries and committee-men. PRINCESS MARY'S ARRIVAL. When Princess Mary, who' is patroness of the hostel, arrived, she was presented with a bouquet by the five-year-old daughter of a Hoxton street greengrocer. The Queen arrived a few minutes later Her Majesty, who :was received by the Princess, was presented with a bouquet by a small boy, who was tae son.of the local butcher.. Across the street there was stretched a. banner bearing the words, "Hoxton shopkeepers and street traders thank Her Majesty," and the traders themselves turned out in full force to give thanks m person. The streets of this part of London aro only too crowded always; on this day they surpassed themselves. To stand in the crowd among the older coster-women was to get an insight into the warm, old-fash-ioned loyalty of the East End; a loyalty with a curiously vivid and personal element in it, something vital and beyond formality. After the Bishop of Stepney had blessed the new hostel the Queen opened the door with a silver key. The Queen, with Princess Mary, Lady Bertha Dawkins, Mrs. Sara Bae (-founder and president of the guild), and Viscount Knehworth (who was "the mashostel ceremonies") made a tour of the The hostel, which has accommodation for between fifty and sixty girls baa been a-project of the guild for over eleveji years. Princess Mary set the i°JJ°,1 at«»M>t°ne last year, and Miss iisteile btead set a stone in niemorv of her father, W. T. Stead, with the inscription: "In memory of \V. T. Stead whose 'Maiden Tribute to Modem' Babylon' inspired the founding of the Girls' Guild." ■