CORONATION PREPARATIONS

Evening Star, Issue 22631, 24 April 1937, Page 15

CORONATION PREPARATIONS

LONDON ILLUMINATIONS MANY BUILDINGS TO BE FLOODLIT (British Official Wireless.) Press Association—By Telegraph--Copyright RUGBY, April 22. About 200 London buildings will be floodlit during the Coronation celebrations. Most of these buildings, which include Buckingham Palace, the Horse Guards, Admiralty Arch, Trafalgar Square, the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, and the new county hall, are situated in the West End of London, but many are in the city, including St. Paul’s Cathedral and the Mansion House, and certain prominent buildings on the south side of the river will also be illuminated. HAHARAHI ARRIVES REMARKABLE PRECAUTIONS TO KEEP PURDAH. LONDON, April 22. The Maharani of Jodhpur arrived from Karachi by air to witness the Coronation She was enabled by remarkable precautions to maintain her lifelong purdah, necessitating that neither man nor woman who is not of the maharaja’s or the raaharani’s caste shall get a glimpse of the maharani’s heavily-veiled face or touch her food. The maharaja, despite an income of £BOO,OOO a year, was unable to hire a special plane. Accordingly he reserved a cabin in a K.L.M. plane, in which the crew were locked in the cockpit at the end of each stage until the maharani left the plane and reached her private room. Finally at Croydon the maharani left the plane by a canvas-covered tunnel and entered a motor car, the windows of which were painted over, and drove to London, where she was similarly secluded. CEREMONY TO BE RECORDED LONDON, April 23. (Received April 24, at 10 a. in. The King has given permission for a gramophone recording to be made of the Coronation ceremony. This is believed to be the first time in history such'a recording will have been made. The original metal matrices will be deposited in the British museum, thus preserving them for posterity. All profits from the sale of the record are being devoted to charity.