STILL A TOPIC

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23413, 1 August 1939, Page 6

STILL A TOPIC

(ROYAL TOUR' IN CANADA OF VISIT QUEEN AND BLIND SOLDIER » ■ MEMORIES OF CHILDHOOD LFKOM OUR OWN' CORRESPONDENT] VANCOUVER, July 4 No event since the Great War stirred the people of Canada so much fis the visit of the King and Queen. It is still a topic of everyday conversation. Journalists who travelled with Their Majesties tire writing books and lecturing on their experiences. The greatest book of all, regarding the tour, may never bo published—the notes of the King and Queen in the Remembrance I3ook presented to them when they landed.

One writer tells of a poignant scene at Toronto. A blind war veteran was presented to the Queen. "It's not the same as at'Glamis, Ma'am, is it?" he asked.

Her Majesty replied, "I remember you now. It was tea on Sundays, Wasn't it?"

"Yes, tea rmd scones every Sunday at my mother's homo." They had played together as children. "1 shall never forget the sight of that man's face as ho was led back to the stand," says one "writer; "it was contorted .with emotion."

A student of the University of British Columbia, like thousands of others, took snapshots of the King and Queen, as their car passed his vantage point, on the heights, overlooking the Gulf of Georgia. He was looking at one picture while travelling in a street car, and a lady, peering over his shoulder, admired it, and asked if she might have one. This gavo him an idea. Ho set to work printing the negative. Orders poured in from as far east as Ontario. The student and threo mem- - bers of his family, worked day and night. To date, 20,000 prints have been made, and the demand is continuing. The student has earned sufficient to pay for the balance of his term at univerBity. i