BRIEF VISIT

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 90, 14 March 1935, Page 2

BRIEF VISIT

DUCHESS OF WESTMINSTER. GLIMPSE OF CITY. Constance, Duchess of Westminster, accompanied by her husband, Captain J. Fitzpatrick Lewis, late R.A.F., who are making a brief holiday tour of New Zealand, principally to enable Her Grace to recover from impaired health, which has greatly benefited from the voyage to the Dominion, arrived in Palmerston North shortly before 2 p.m. yesterday. They took lunch at this centre, and immediately resumed the motor journey from Napier to Wellington. Her Grace, who prefers an open-air life, has her country house in Hampshire, not far from the New Forest, and about 80 miles from London. “I have been very impressed with the Maoris I have met,” the Duchess informed the “Standard.” “I knew some of them during the war when giving my services as a nurse. They are a simple, nice, kindly folk.” Showing her practical interest in farming activities, which she conducts on modest linos at her own establishment in England, Her Grace commented that she had only seen New Zealand farms as she hrd passed them on the road, but added: “I would really like to have had the chance to visit one, and sec how they run their creameries and ini k siipp’v. “We have both thoroughly enjoyed ourselves in New Zealand,” she said. “We found the thermal districts marvellous.” The Duchess and her husband thought the drive round the Lake Tarnwera district lovely, and Captain Lewis said, “We have both decided that to come to New Zealand for only a month is absolutely silly.” Her Grace who is an expert ■ with the rod, landed a bag of 20 trout averaging about olb. each, when fishing at Taupn and Wairakei. whe’° she considered the sport excellent. She thought the gardens of Auckland, and also the Ellerslie racecourse, wore beautiful. “New Zoa'nnd is reailv charming.” she concluded. “Its people are so nice, the travelling arrangements so good, and the hotel managements so attentive.”