BUDKINS’ HUT BUDGET

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXVI, 11 August 1934, Page 9

BUDKINS’ HUT BUDGET

There’s quite a lot of Hut news this "week,' Tinkites —some good, some not-so-good. The not-so-good news is that I was nearly drowned a day or two ago. What d’you think of that? It all came about through Tink making herself a new bathing suit. Nice .suit it is, too, and dressmaker is telling the Wendy girls how to make one like it. But that’s not what I was going to say. You see, Tink having made this smart bathing suit insisted that we should go bathing in a lovely pool close by the Hut garden. Well, it wasn’t a very hot day, and neither Wendy nor I was particularly keen on the idea, but Tink was—so wo went.

Of course Wendy and Tink swim like impertinent little fishes. I’m not so good, though I can just manage to keep going—l mean to learn to swim properly this year, because I honestly think everyone should, don’t you'? To get on with the story, Wendy and Tink were splashing about, floating, and doing all sorts of fancy strokes, •while I was plunging and pulling and blowing and doing no kind, of stroke at all. It was rather humiliating to see two girls doing what I couldn’t do. So I made up my mind to strike out. And I struck out for the middle of the pool. Then I don’t know what happened, but I seemed to forget what to do next and I nearly went under! I waved my arms about and shouted. Wendy thought I was just “showing off” and turned her back, Tink thought I was practising a new stroke and came nearer to see it. Lucky she did, for soon I went right under! She was scared, of course, grabbed me when I came up, and yelled for help. And I had the awful experience of being hooked out of the pool with a wellhook by an old gardener man who had heard the shouts! Learn to swim properly, boys and girls! It’s quite easy, carpenter is teaching' me now, and I’m getting on splendidly. He’s a fine swimmer! How for-some good news —carpenter has had another “special request” —this time for a model biplane which a boy who owns a fret-work outfit can make. He.is giving instructions this week.— Cheerio, Billikins.

MEET POOR LITTLE EDWARD VI. King Edward VI. was a very unhappy boy—for he was no more than a boy when he became King, and still a boy when lie died.' Meeting him when he Came to the throne at the age of nine in 1574, we find a frail youngster who would much rather have been left to his studies — he had a passion for learning—than become ruler in succession to his bluff and hearty father —Henry VIII. Painters of the past have done their best to make the boy King look kingly, but I fear most portraits flatter him. He was a sulky-looking youngster on account of constant illness, and it has been said that only his sister, or rather half-sister, Elizabeth, could bring out the best that was in him. Young Edward soon showed signs of all the Tudor obstinacy, and was even something of a fanatic when it came to religious questions. You must not forget that in those days the people of England were always squabbling about the way people should worship. Edward Vl.' was, in his turn, ruled by the all-powerful Duke of Somerset, and later by the equally powerful Duke of Northumberland. These two men really worried the life out of him —poor, sickly little boy. Ho died at the age of fifteen at Greenwich after he had been very ill for over a year, and was buried in Henry Vll.’s chapel on Btli August, 1553.