PALACE SEWING BEES

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 121, 18 November 1939, Page 19

PALACE SEWING BEES

QUEEN AND THE STAFF

WORKING FOR THE RED CROSS

(By Air Mail, from "The Post's" London Representative.) LONDON, October 24. Twice a week the Queen attends sewing bees in Buckingham Palace, She sits down at a large table in the blue drawing-room with twenty women, who are the wives of the Palace staff, and talks with them while she works. . In the place of stately furniture are wooden chairs and trestle tables. The bees are *the Queen's idea; she suggested that wives of the staff might like to help with work for the Bed Cross. She knows them all, and—wearing a plain wool frank—she talks to them about the|r husbands and their children. ' ■ ' . ■.■•■,■■■ ■' '• ■ For one moment there is Royal formality..* YThea the Queen^ enters, the women stand up. But after that formality ends, and the Queen ot England is one of twenty or so wives sewing to help England. ' She sits 'at the head of one of the trestle tables, making hospital chest pads. , The Queen allows' nothing but the most important State affairs to stop her attending. Among the women who'attend are Mrs. Coles, the head gardener's wife, who has not missed a meeting since the work started. Like the Queen, she is a Scot—and, like the Queen, she is a good needlewoman. Mrs. Smith, wife of the Queen's page, takes her 16-year-old daughter, Pamela, with her to.knit. Her 14-year-old niece, Sheila, knitted socks so quickly that several times the Queen asked heir questions about the way she was doing her work. ' ■-.■■'■■..; '-- ' ' ■'~ ..":.'■■ Mrs. Taylor, of the Royal Mews, has a son—a; steward's room' boy in the-Palace—-who has been called up. There is also Mrs. Fisher, whose son !is in the Navy."Don't worry," ithe Queen told her, "he'll walk in one day when; you least expect him." He came home the next day. ■ '/-.;,■■■ ••/■; ■ .-■ Mrs. Jerram, the King's/valet's wife; Mrs. Hurle, wife of the Queen'schauffeur; and Mrs. Jones, a groom's wife, all go together every week. They sew flannel jackets, which are cut out Iby Mrs. Ferguson, a Palace housej keeper. ■■■■'■■>. ■:■' . ■■ ■ '.- .... ■••.■.•: