THE SILVER JUBILEE

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 85, 10 April 1935, Page 17

THE SILVER JUBILEE

BALLS AT THE PALACE

About 4000 people may be expected to receive invitations to the State balls to be given by the King and Queen at Buckingham Palace, the first of which is provisionally fixed for May 14, and the second for June 18. No Royal function is so brilliantly colourful, and all who attend will have a vivid j memory of a dazzling scene, states a! writer in the "Daily Telegraph." ] No State ball has-been held for eleven years. On the last occasion there were two in May, 1924, the first to celebrate the visit to the British Empire Exhibition of the King and Queen of Kumania, and the second in honour of two other Royal visitors to the exhibition, the King and Queen of Italy. . • .. ,As a rule, all the State apartments are thrown open to the guests, and there is a fitting prelude to the magnificence of the white, scarlet, and gold ballroom in the progress up the great florally decorated staircase; With Yeomen of the Guard posted. on either side. ' ■ ■■'.'■'..■"'.

The supper-room, with the famous gold plate displayed at each, end, is another striking spectacle. • The ball begins at 10 p.m., when the King and Queen, accompanied by other members of. the Royal Family, to the strains of the National Anthem enter the ballroom in procession and take -up their positions on the dais. Immediately afterwards their Majesties open the ball by leading a quadrille.

The nearest approach to a State ball since 1924 was in July, 1931, when a "Court Ball" was given at Buckingham Palace, largely in honour ,of the Queen's niece, Lady May' Cambridge (now Lady May Abel Smith), who had just returned to London from South Africa with her parents, Princess Alice Countess of Athlone andy the Earl of Athlonc.