INDISCREET WRITER

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21391, 16 January 1933, Page 3

INDISCREET WRITER

COMING TO NEW ZEALAND Lady Angela St. Clair Erskine, who wrote a book, "Fore and Aft," containing indiscreet references to her visit to Government House, Sydney, during the height of the controversy between the Governor (Sir Philip Game) and the then Premier (Mr. Lang), intends to return to Australia. "I should not be returning if I had not fallen in love with Australia," Lady Angela said to a London interviewer, and she pointed out that her uncle and her nephew, Lord Loughborough, had married Australians. She was anxious to dispel the notion that her book was intended to belittle Australia or Australians. "I was associated with thousands of Diggers during the war," she said. "What sports they were during camp mutinies in France! I had only to appeal to them at Etaples and all lawlessness ceased. We often played housey-housey together." Referring to her comments on Sir Philip and Lady Game, Lady Angela said that she had written nothing that she was not prepared to repeat before Sir Philip himself. In any case, she had deleted from the book the remarks to which exception had been taken. "Far from wishing to attack Sir Philip Game," she added. "I defended him in Sydney against malicious remarks. It is regrettable that more prestige was not maintained at Government House, for instance, on the occasion of the farewell dinner to (he Queensland Governor (Sir Thomas Goodwin). "Sir Philip wasn't always discreet. His remark, 'Thank God, the Conservatives aren't in power,' was only a milder opinion. I could have published others which would have caused a much greater sensation." f Lady Angela will not stay long in Melbourne or Sydney. The principal object of her visit will be fishing in New Zealand.