LONDON IN JUNE.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 15 October 1924, Page 7

LONDON IN JUNE.

(Halifax Courier) Your real Londoner, wlio is comfortable situated and fairly -well supplied with tins woild s and requisites regards his London as the most beauti! ful place in the world at any time of the year, but in June, when the roses are blooming at their best and the sun is shining brightly, when the thermometer registers about 6S in the snade, then there are places in greater London as pretty as paradise, where one lingers regardless of the passing 0 f time. I can fancy some of my readers who know only the London of the busy thoroughfares with their jostling crowds and smells of petrol, asking where these delectable spots are to be found. I assure them they are to he found by the score; places where you can breathe the balmy air and look out upon a riot of beauty and colour. Places where you can lie down on the grass under a spreading chestnut, oak, elm or lime tree, while the thrush, blackbird, or linnet discourses sweet music from the boughs above you, and the little grey squirrel plays around tout feet, nmuching a nut the while.* It may be only in Regent’s Park, only a five minute’s step from the Marytebone Road, or it may be in the gardens of Kew. It may be at Finsbury Park in the north, or it .may be at Kensington Park near the Oval cricket ground in the south-west, or, if you go a little further afield, it may be at Chingford, Epping Forest on the eastern. side, or at Shooters Hill Woods on the way to Gravesend. These are but half a dozen of the places where you may find the joys I have enumerated. I have - not found them all' yet, for their number is legion. London is not only magnificent as to splendour, wealth, and size; she is not merely great as to resources and population, but she is beautiful, and year by year she is comng. to be regarded as "the most beautiful city in the world. The more I know of this great capital the greater is my love for it, for I realise that however.often I visit London I always find something new. There are some half-millipn visitors in London this week. Ttnnk of it 1 A population nearly five times the size of Halifax, and there is yet room for more. They come to see and take part in its gaiety and pleasure. Just at the moment, in addition to the great Exhibition at Wembley, there is tbe International Horse Show at Olympia, and the International lawn tennis contests at Wimbledon. People flock in their thousands and tens of thousands -to see these sights, for are not the greatest riders of the world competing at the Horse Show, and all the tennis champions of America, France, Spain, Japan, etc, engaged at the courts out Wimbledon way? Whatever your particular pleasure is it can he found here, and it would be difficult to imagine a taste that could not be supplied. Out in the West End, on Monday morning, I took. a. leisurely promenade through the streets —the streets where the lazy holiday-taking people perambulate. Down Piccadilly, through the Burlington Arcade, along to Bond-street, I met quite a lot of folk I know. There’s something about Bond-street different from ordinary streets. The people move more leisurely on their’morning promenade. I saw quite a lot of handsome women and pretty girls driving two-seater cars; the occupant of the second seat was usually a dog. All sorts of dogs, Alsatians, Chows, Pekingese, Sealyhams and one or two Airedales; everyone aristocrats as to pedigree, etc. (the dogs I mean, not the ladies). The ladies may have been anything, aristocrat, plutocrat, upstart plebian, or deinimondaine, for anything I know The dogs were fine and the ladies, well! they were pretty, and what more have you or I the right to ask? And echo answers “Nothing!” I did notice one lady with a monkey. He struck me as being a mischievous gentleman. She carried him in the crutch of her arm and he w r as gibbering outside a chocolate shop. Oh, yes! I know those chocolates, top, Mr. Monkey, and it takes all my best courage and determination to pass that window. Mr. Monkey must have had some. Six shillings a pound they are too. The lady gave him a gentle tap as I passed by. I tnrned round after going a few yards; the monkey was still gibbering. It must have been chocolates lie wanted. We had a ride up to Richmond on the bus. A lady and I. I asked the lady if she thought she could manage a walk along the river path to Kew. She told me in language quite forcible she’d do anything I could. The day was perfect, the swans plied .their wav gracefully over the surface of the river, the pleasure boats with their merry crowd sailed by, a couple of girls paddled a punt close under the bank; overhead, up in the blue, an aeroplane performed various feats for his own amusement, I presume, hut for our interest and appreciation also. The lady said, “This is a lovely walk, let’s sit down.” So we sat down under a- huge chestnut tree., the thick foliage of which gave us shade from the scorching sun The lady told me many stories. After a rest of five minutes I remarked. “We had better be moving.” We moved about two hundred and fifty yards. Tbe surroundings were lovely; the lady said. “Let’s sit down.” “Let’s,” ,1 replied. This process was continued all tbe way down that beautiful walk. We did two miles in two hours and a quarter, thus just beating “even time.” When we turned into Kew Gardens from the river bank the scene was glorious. The trees all decked out in their very newest spring costume, the roses scented the air, the birds sang a chorus of glory to their Maker, and Jdie lady, noticing a seat placed under a beaqtiful maple tree, said. “Let’s sit down, Jim, we’ve plenty of time,” and ive sat down once more. A floek of geese came and gazed at us; tbe old gander said something that sounded like Yorkshire and led his merry wives away. I don’t like the song of the goose, it’s not musical. I have distinctly decided in my own mind that a goose cannot sing, and the lady who was with me said. “They’re all right for roasting at Michaelmas, or Christmas.” But she is practical; I never was anything but a dreamer. I won’t tell .you who the lady was, but if you chance to meet my wife she will probably know. If you and I could only spend like Nature spends! How prodigtl she is! Here’s the grass carpet with its millions of blades, “verdure, on tender verdure laid.” Here are the rose hushes with flowers falling, millions of coloured petals deck the ground. Nature is not - stingy... -i; aveful of the type, reckless of the individual giving and spending. She flings her wealth of colour about and still has more. In an obscure corner there was a plethora of foxgloves growing, one great mass of bloom right down their tall stalks. T?ees, ferns, flowers, -grass, all beantiful and given by Nature without stint. Would it not he bliss if yon or I could give like this. To be able to fling inv and pleasure about to others as Nature does. Nature is a snendthrift every day, but she never fails us. So snoke tbe buttercups and daisies to ns as we walked down tbe grass path at Kew.

“Come and have n ride to St. Mary’s Bay.” So said my friend on the “Bow” on Srvnday morning. The lady was gone home and left me to en-

joy London for a few more days. We were admiring the gorgeous dresses of the Ascot Sunday parade. “Where is St. Mary’s Bay? I asked. Somewhere a few miles below Gravesend, on the Kentish Coast,” he replied. We went. There were three cars for us. Ours got there first. After about, twenty miles on the main road passing through Bealey Heath and Blackheath, Deptford and Gravesend, we turned into a Kentish narrow lane. We wound around, twisting, turning, losing our way and finding it again, ultimately arriving at the place I have named. There is one house there, a farm house, and there we were to have tea. My friend assured me he had dug this place out, nobody else knew it. We would get a perfect tea and then stroll along the shingly shore for a couple of hours and return to town. When we arrived, it is true, there was only the one farm house, but I counted five charas, eight motors. 21 motor bikes, and an innumerable crowd of cyclists. ‘‘All these have dug your place out, Joe.” I remarked. “Well.” he said, the last time I came, etc., etc.” We managed to get some tea and bread and butter at a quarter to seven. It was a perfect day, however, and neither tea or time mattered in the least. We watched the ships come and go with their cargoes of wealth and life. We were on the Thames estuary, not far from Sheerness and facing Southend. We felt it good to he alive, and when the time for return came we fastened our eyes upon lovely cottage gardens with their roses climb, ing up the walls and trelbsed arbours. We watched the children playing in the grassy country lanes. The old car was only doing about twelve miles per hour, but the road was lovely and the time did not count, for this was June.