AN ENGLISH VISITOR

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 31, 6 February 1936, Page 18

AN ENGLISH VISITOR

FROM CALIFORNIA

NEW ZEALAND LIKE "HOME"

Mrs. A. C. Charlton told a 'Tost" representative, who interviewed her yesterday at the Midland Hotel, that English people who went to live in America soon merged into its ways and became indistinguishable from Americans, but if her observation is correct she herself is not a good example. Although she has lived in America for several years,'her husband being the British Consul-General for California, Mrs. Charlton has not the slightest trace of the accent with which one famous author said Americans grace the English language, and would always be easily recognised as an English woman.

Mrs. Charlton was born in Norfolk, but has spent much of her life abroad. She and her husband and his sister, Miss Majorie Charlton, arrived in Wellington by the Maunganui on Monday for a holiday tour, and Mrs. Charlton had some very pleasant things to say about New Zealand.

The moment she arrived here she was struck by its likeness in many ways to England, Mrs, Charlton said. There was more of the personal element here in the service in both the hotels and the shops than in America. When she first went to America she stayed at a hotel and left her shoes outside her bedroom door to be cleaned when she retired for the night, only to be rung up at midnight by an irate hotel clerk to be asked why her shoes were there, and would she be so good as to remove them! In America it is the custom to have one's shoes "shined" while one is wearing them, ,in the street or in barbers' shops, and Mrs. Charlton said that one never saw the chambermaids in the hotels and that morning tea at seven o'clock was an unheard of thing. It had made her feel very much at home since she came to New Zealand to have tea brought in in the' mornings.

The clubs were an important feature of American life, Mrs. Charlton said, and many of them were huge organisations, but it was a strange thing that although there were so many women's clubs and so many men's clubs there was not one, so far as she knew, for both men and women. Mrs. Charlton is not a member of any club herself, but has attended lectures at one or two. She heard the late Mr. John Galsworthy lecturing on literature not so long ago and on another occasion Mr. John Masefield reading his own poems. They were very keen on these lectures in America and visiting lecturers were always sure of huge audiences.

All that was said about the warmth and generosity of American hospitality was quite true, Mrs. Charlton said, but the slump had been felt''as badly in California as elsewhere And there had been far less entertaining done during the past few years than previously.

Miss Charlton, who was present at the interview, and who is herself an interesting person, having been for nine years editress .of the "Ladies' Field," a London monthly magazine many people will remember, but which went out of existence during the slump, paid a tribute to the New Zealand Press which she said was most refreshing after the sensational American papers, and she considered the women's weeklies she had seen in this country most interesting and comprehensive.

There were bowls of deep pink and mauve hydrangeas in the lounge, and waving her hand in their direction, Miss Charlton said that since their arrival in New Zealand they had never ceased to marvel at the wonderful colours of these flowers which they saw wherever they went, and the like of which they had not seen anywhere else in the world.

Mr. and Mrs. Charlton and Miss Charlton have planned an extensive tour of both islands. They will leave for the south tonight, returning to Wellington for a few days in a few weeks' time before continuing their tour in the north.