WELCOME TO MRS. LYONS

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 48, 24 August 1935, Page 19

WELCOME TO MRS. LYONS

ANXIOUS TO , SEE HER BABY

All eager to welcome Mrs. J. A. Lyons bacfc to Sydney, and; to hear her give her impressions of her trip, abroad, nine hundred women crowded.': into Hordern ; Bros,' Tearoom- on August 12, every available corner and all • standing room being filled, states-the "Sydney: Morning Herald." The.party was given in Mrs. J. A. Lyons's honour by the. Women's Club of the United Australia Party, which invited representatives of various women's organisations' to < extend their greetings also. This was the ; only women's.party that Mrs. Lyons had time to attend iiv the rushed few hours between her arrival in tHe morning and her departure at 4 p.m. to join the remainder of her family at Canberra. Speaking with obvious feeling, and \vith that sincerity and charm that has so impressed her audiences: during her travels abroad, Mrs. Lyons, in the short space of half an hour, managed to convey a full impression of wonderful display of loyalty at Jubilee time; of the magnificence of the celebrations then: of her hurried visits' to rural England where 'the beauty of the countryside' so delighted her, and "every blade of grass looked as if it had just come from the barber's shop"; and of her visits to Scotland and Ireland and the Continent. Of the latter she said, laughingly, y that only Australians would "have the nerve to try and' do Europe; in ten days. We did it, and it was all. very lovely, but distressingly brief." "WHAT IS' THE QUEEN LIKE?" In thanking her audience for the warmth of its welcome, Mrs: Lyons said she would answer for!them the question put to her by every woman she met on the later stages of her journey home. They were: "What is the King like?" "What is the Queen like?" "Is the Duchess "of Kent as beautiful as the newspapers say, and is the Duchess of York as. sweet?". Mrs. Lyons's answers to the latter questions were "Yes," and of the King and she said that the wonderful demonstration of love given by their people at the Jubilee showed that they realised more than anything else that their Majesties were good British people—the Queen a good wife and mother, and the King, a good husband and father. Concluding her address on a more intimate note, Mrs. Lyons apologised for her early departure from the gathering, saying she was anxious to get home and see her baby. "Tliey tell me she has grown into quite a little woman now, and I haven't heard her speak yet," she said, adding that the women of Sydney had made the first day of her return a memorable one for her. She left the party at 4 p.m. to motor to Canberra, carrying away innumerable sheaves, boxes, and baskets of flowers, which had been presented to her. ■ ■