A LETTER FROM HOME.

Otago Witness, Issue 3829, 2 August 1927, Page 67

A LETTER FROM HOME.

By

Sheila Scobie Macdonald.

(Special fob the Otago Witness.) . July 5. Our England is a garden that is full of stately views, Of borders, beds, and shrubberies and lawns and avenues, With statues on the terraces and peacocks strutting by. Once, lone ag°, I read and committed to memory those lines by Rudyard Kipling, and after long years of imprisonment in some recess of my memory I actually found myself—to my own amazementquoting them last Monday, when I found myself in the very surroundings described, even down to the peacock who strutted up and down a velvety lawn, screeching sweet nothings to his drab little wife walking along so demurely by his side. As I had paid only a shilling to enter the paradise, and that shilling had gone to the Queen Alexandra National Memorial Fund, I had a virtuous feeling of economy and generosity as well as pleasure —a most pleasant combination. The garden belonged to the Duchess of Norfolk, and the setting was in the private grounds of the great turreted castle of Arundel, which stands on a rise above the town of the same name, and overlooks the lovely Arun flowing sleepily along between the smoothest green banks imaginable. The Duchess has followed the example of so many great landowners of throwing open their private gardens to the public this summer. The small fee charged goes to the Queen Alexandra Fund, which has-already benefited to an enormous extent, showing clearly how many thousands enjoy this peep into another world. Centuries of loving care have gone to the making of these wonderful gardens, whose lawns are like the softest velvet, glimpsed in the case of the Arundel home through rose-embowered, century-old arches. Vast terraces swept

down to a clear sunlit lake, and beyond and round on all sides were stately elms and oaks, close-clipped, trim hedges, herbaceous borders already rioting in early summer heautv, and roses—roses all the way. Shrubberies of rhododendrons, azalea bordered, made splashes of vivid colour, and behind all rose the grey stone pile, home of the Dukes of Norfolk, proudest and most ancient of the nobles

of our race. The run by car from London is only about 40 miles, and many cars were parked in the great courtyard within the entrance gates, but of all the hundreds which roamed through the gardens that bright, warm day, not one so much as picked up a fallen petal, or left even a wisp of paper upon the velvety turf. Countless other gardens, including Sandringham, have been thrown open to the public this summer, a much prized privilege which it is to be hoped will not be abused.

June 3 was the King’s birthday, but as neither that day nor Empire Day was a holiday in England I went up to town on shopping bent, and landed at Victoria Station to find the Soviet folk on the point of departure. Was ever such an unexpected stroke of good luck ? It was the crowd that attracted my attention at first, and, thinking that Royalty must be ! expected, I joined in, only to find that I was farewelling Mr Rosengolz and company. My-sex was much in evidence, but I am ashamed to say that they were mostly lustily singing the Red Flag, and shouting encouraging remarks to the little band of foreigners, who waved hands, bowed, and gesticulated in response. Mr Rosengolz was accompanied by his wife and family, the latter chattering together freely in coloquial English minus the shadow of an accent. That irritated me somehow —why I don’t know —but it did. I saw several Englishmen shaking hands warmly with the Russians, and recognised Mr Clynes, who was very much to the fore. Some of the onlookers booed the singing of the “ Red Flag,” and, pushing forward an Englishman who, as the result of imprisonment and shocking ill-treatment in a Russian prison, is totally blind, commenced to shout the National Anthem. In fact, we all got very heated and argumentative, and if Mr Rosengolz’s train had not whisked him out of sight I rather think there might have been some trouble.

Anyway, they have gone, and only the extreme Socialists pretend to be sorry. There was some public sympathy for one or two of the Soviet staff, particularly for one man whose wife was English, and whose sons have been at a public school in this country. To thees people England is home and Russia is a foreign country, so what will be the result of their enforced residence there is rather problematic. >

We went to the Derby on Wednesday—such a day, and such a crowd as I have never before experienced. We took sandwiches, and as we were wise and early, squatted happily on the grass by the rails at Tattenham Corner and waited and watched. Ensom on Derby Day is an extraordinary sight, for every sort and kind of human, from gipsies to princes, form such a vast crowd as staggers the pen to describe. Experts say that 250.000 people were there on Wednesday. Personally, by the pushing and jostling and squeezing I endured, I should say there were many more, and that everyone came separately in a special vehicle to himself. The gipsies’ caravans looked like a small and rather sordid town, and row upon row, rank upon rank were farm carts, lorries, buses, and motor cars from the humblest variety, to the luxurious article belonging to the luckier folk. As the horses started one great shout went echo-

ing round the course, a shout reaching a deafening clamour as the horses thundered round Tottenham Corner. I had backed Hot Night, and was told that my jockey wore a white cap and was number 10. but as he flashed past I was too excited to bother about caps or numbers, even if in that one brief moment it had been possible to. distinguish them. Call Boy won, of course, and was proudly led in by his owner, Frank Curzon, of theatrical fame, who has lately been in such bad health that his horse’s victory almost caused him to collapse. A very pleasurable kind of collapse all the same.

We all went over to Croydon Aerodrome last Sunday to see Captain Lindbergh arrive from Paris, but when I saw the crowds gathered together I thought discretion the better part of valour, and losing myself in the crowd came sneaking home. The rest of the party had wonderful experiences, for two of them were in the crowd which smashed down the wicket fence and rushed the plane and the aviator No one wanted to smash down the fence—it was the pressure of thousands straining in the rear that did it, and once it gave way there was nothing for it but to run with the crowd or be trampled underfoot. On one side the fence remained firm, and the American Ambassador going forward, spoke to the excited crowd behind, told them candidly 7 that all the police had been rushed to the broken barrier, and put them on their British honour to assist him by standing firm. After that, not even a child pushed“forward until after Lindbergh had been rescued by the Ambassador from the crowds winch nearly overwhelmed him. Later I saw him leaving Buckingham Palace after his reception by the King. He is very tall, very thin, but -well set up with the straightest of straight backs and very broad shoulders considering his slimness. He is flaxen fair, with a wide mouth, and many rather attractive freckles, and his grin is as frequent and | boyish as it is infectious. I rather think I it is his very charming appearance that has, quite apart from his great feat, made him so enormously attractive to the multitude, but certain it is, that as a popular flying hero, bur own Sir Alan Cobham never had any tiling even mildly approaching the enthusiasm that has greeted Captain Lindbergh whenever and wherever he appeared. A pity, I think. * * *

Whit Monday Bank Holiday is upon us, and as I write the country side is being snowed under with pieces of paper, orange and banana peel, and even lemonade bottles. The paper even drifts in heaps in the streets, and every field and common is a horrid sight. One of the “ Strong Verboten ” rules in Germany fixes drastic penalties for the careless- distributor of rubbish in town or country, and it is one of the rules we might do well to copy Every year some ardent reformer preaches anil pleads with the great B.P. to desist from the odious practice of scattering remains of an al fresco meal, but all in vain. It’s just one of the tilings Britishers do, and evidently mean to go on doing. But it’s horrid'