MISS DOROTHY ROUND

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIV, Issue 295, 10 November 1934, Page 11

MISS DOROTHY ROUND

AN INTIMATE PEN PICTURE

HER LIFE AT HOME

The visit to the Dominion of the champion lady tennis player, Miss Dorothy Round, adds interest to an intimate pen portrait of her and her home in Dudley, a quiet little town near Birmingham, written by an English commentator. Like the Rounds themselves,. their home has an atmosphere of dignity and reserve. For generations the family lias been staunchly Methodist, and to-day, in an era that tolerates Sunday sport and gaiety as a matter of course, it takes the stem stand of the Puritan Nonconformist. The daughter of the house has been brought up to be the direct antithesis of the so-called “modern girl.” At the home of the Rounds all novels and light reading are put away on the Sabbath, and only serious books are read. Cars are used as little as possible, and then mostly for conveying the family to divine worship. When Dorothy Round is at home she teaches a class of children in the Sunday school, where, not so very long ago, she herself was a pupil. Although she has lived a cosmopolitan life within th© last two years, travelling in luxury trans-Atlantic liners and staying at the smartest hotels all over Europe and America, she still buys her clothes in Dudley. She loves to crochet and knit, and makes all .of her own jumpers—but in the main street of the town there is a shop kept by two ageing spinsters. As a little girl Dorothy used to be taken there by her mother to buy her simple frocks and now that she is world tennis champion she goes there just the same for tennis frocks and party frocks and most of the rest of her wardrobe.

■ Any morning, when she is at home, one can see her take her own car out and drive down into the town to do the household shopping. All the tradesmen know her, have Known her since she was “so high,” some of the older ones will tell her proudly. She is liked and respected by the townspeople; and that means a lot in such a conservative community as that of Dudley. Ever since slie was nineteen she has concentrated her high hopes upon oneday winning at Wimbledon; but, as well as tennis, social service has played a great part in her young life. She speaks at sportsmen’s religious services in various parts of the Midlands, and takes the platform, too, at meetings of the Youth Movement. The baby welfare centre of Dudley receives a good deal of her attention when she is home between tournaments. You can see her there in the afternoons, helping mothers to undress and weigh their babies. She nurses them herself and listens sympathetically to the stories of their progress, of their tiny ailments. Small wonder that she has won the hearts of the citizens of her own home town!

This is the girl who, throughout her tennis career, has resolutely refused to plav tennis on Sunday, and lias stuck to her convictions, when the need arose, throughout persuasion and even ridicule.

At home Dorothy Round is just “mother’s girl”—devoted to the care of the home. She helps with the cooking and the housework, likes to sew and to arrange the flowers which she has cut from the garden. She and her mother are much alike in looks, both tall and dark, and very slim. They share a passionate liking for the novels of Jeffrey Farnol, and together have read every book he lias ever written. Dorothy Round likes books that are “sincere,” and will have nothing to do with the mere froth and bubble of epigram. The bulk of her rending time goes to religious books. One sees this religious vein running through her whole life. Yet she is definitely not narrow-minded, not a prig.

She plays the piano a little, not particularly well, but just enough to amuse herself and her family. Many a bright little musical evening is enjoyed when Dorothy is at home, and invites her childhood friends to a party. No alcoholic drinks are provided, for her family is strictly teetotal. The tennis star’s own favourite drink is lemonade, and 1 doubt if she has so much as tried a cigarette.