MAYFAIR YOUTH SOCIETIES

Hawera Star, Volume LIII, 30 September 1933, Page 13

MAYFAIR YOUTH SOCIETIES

JUNIOR COMMITTEES FORMED. AIM OF MODERN" DEBUTANTES. A crisis is rapidly developing in Mayfair on the delicate problem of ■ u age limit for junior committees (states the ’“Daily Telegraph”). Fashionable mothers now attach so much importance to the committees, ol youth that one of the first actions when a “sub-debutante” daughter leaves school is to obtain her admission to one of these bands of young girls. The junior committee is a secret society of youth, comparable to “The Souls” of Victorian days and “The Bright Young Things” of the postwar period. Ostensibly its purpose, is to help in the organisation of balls or dinners in aid of charities. In Pact, it is far more —the medium of mixing socially, and the source of many Mayfair romances. If an unknown debutante once finds herself on a junior committee, a round of parties is immediately assured her. Hostesses wanting young people's names for their dinner and dance l’sts invite junior committees intact. To bo chairman of a junior committee is the dream of every modern debutante. It means that social importance is immediately assured her, and that she will be oiie of the most talked-of girls of the season. Little wonder that the social advantages of being on one of these committees are highly prized and that gjrls resent the information, however tactfully put, that they have passed the age limit. Married women, however young, are automatically banned, except in the case of relatives or close friends of a committee member. From 17 to 27 is the age during which one may qualify for admission. “After 27,”’ t vas told, “a girl begins to get a settleddown look and is out of place at junior meetings and parties.” The task of delicately pointing out the advantages of the “Dowagers’ Committee” to girls over the age limit is harrassing charity organisers. Indignant mothers ring them up protesting that their daughters are rot on the junior committees.* Donations to funds have even been offered to secure admission to one of these girl committees.

One girl has had the courage to £;dmit that she- was too old for a junior committee. She was a prominent member of “The Bright Young Things” of several years ago.- Offered membership on the strength of the fact that she still looks extremely young, she refused on the ground that she did not want to be made ridiculous.