PRINCESS’ EVIL BEADS

Greymouth Evening Star, 21 July 1927, Page 3

PRINCESS’ EVIL BEADS

CHARMS THROWN INTO SEA. A strange packet of scarabs, amulets and ancient beads, once belonging to an Egyptian Princess, and now hidden in the sea. is recalled as the talisman of Boscombe's new pier, which was opened with full civic honours a few weeks ago. Pitched into the English Channel as agents of evil superstition, the collection is believed by longshoremen to have turned the pier’s luck after a. generation of misfortune. For years before the war the pier was a financial embarrassment to a private company and to Bournemouth Corporation.-to whom the first owners willingly sold it. It was constantly “improved” and “reopened” without success. Then, in the course of the war. a. s«-k Egyptian princess came to Boscombe. “We should never have heard of her. but for a servant who came one day to ask permission to throw some evil charms into the sea,” one of the pier officials said in relating the story. “Her mistress believed she would recover from her illness if the charms were thrown off the end of the pier. They were supposed to be very old,very valuable, and to have come from mummy caskets. We had no objection. and about 5 o’clock one afternoon the charms arrived, and we solemnly threw them away—rather regretfully, as they were very pretty.” “Did the princess then recover?” the official was asked. “We never found out,” he said, “but almost from that day a new interest was taken in the pier. All the old pessimism seemed to go, and people started talking about what we should do with Boscombe Pier after the war. We were staggered when the Corporation decided to spend £22,000 on it.” The result is attractive. At its sea end the pier now has an airy enclosure for nightly concerts and dancing. An audience of 650 can be accommodated, and there is also a “quarterdeck” cafe, overlooking the sea. The extension is fitted with trumpet amplifiers to allow music played on the pier to be heard right along the immediate promenades and over the surrounding cliffs.