A LETTER FROM HOME.

Otago Witness, Issue 3885, 28 August 1928, Page 63

A LETTER FROM HOME.

By

Sheila Scobie Macdonald.

(Special for the Otago Witness.) July 2. I spent one whole day this week at Wimbledon, being shepherded there by a friend, who declared that to one who knew the ropes the getting there minus a ticket was mere child’s play. So, armed with a packet of sandwiches, we started off gaily after breakfast, and returned home in the evening so utterly weary, so footsore, so “ star ” sated, that bed was the only thing in life that held any interest for us. To begin with, the crowds almost beggar description. We went by underground to Southfields station. Each carriage was so packed at the start that it seemed impossible that one more person could be squeezed in and survive to tell the tale; but worse was to come when Southfields was reached and our train vomited out its thousands on top of yet more thousands from other trains. It was terrible—the station yard was nothing but a sea of humans, clamouring for taxis, lining up for buses, rushing for charabancs. We walked, and walked in a queue so long and straggling that it seemed to come from nowhere and be ending up in space. However, we procured tickets—standing only —and fought and pushed our way to the different courts. By some miracle we obtained quite a good view of the match between the American boy wonder, W. Coen, and our own Austin, and stood there so on tip-toe with excitement that time and aching feet scarcely seemed to count at all. Coen is rather short, squarish in build, with a face to match, and a friendly grin so widely spread over it that it is impossible to look upon it and not grin in response. He is only 16, but looks more, quite as old, in fact, as his 20-year-old opponent, who by the way, to our enormous satisfaction, w’as the victor. “ Junior,” as Coen is called by his compatriots, was chatting to Betty Nuthall outside the centre court some time before his match with Austin. As soon as the word went round who they were, a crowd—l was part of .it I am not ashamed to admit—gathered round them, straining ear and eyes alike to hear and see what the stars said, and how they looked saying it. Yet those two infants were quite unperturbed; Coen grinning broadly, and Betty self-possessed and attractive in an all white kit, with a white blazer. I was so intrigued that we lingered too long, and in consequence saw only the tops of Fraulein Aussem’s and Evelyn Collyer’s pretty heads as they fought out their match. Afterwards we saw Fraulein Aussem, arm in arm with Cochet, drinking lemonade. They were talking the most extraordinary mixture of French and German, interlarded with American slang, and so enjoying it that they kept pealing with laughter at each other's efforts. Fraulein Aussem is the very antithesis of one’s ideas of German girls, for she is slim, fairly tall, and very pretty, with perfectly beautiful brown eyes. I noticed how, as she raised her glass of lemonade to her mouth, the muscles of her uncovered arm stood out strongly, and rather unbecomingly. In fact, most of the girl stars’ arms are too developed for beauty, or anyway appeared sc in my eyes.

I didn’t see Helen Wills, but Rene Laeoste w’as pointed out to me; a spare man, dark and alert of eye, wearing the inevitable cap that one always associates with him. Evelyn Collyer is such a pretty, attractive girl. I could hardly take my eyes, off her when she was pointed out to me. . Altogether it was a great day, but by the time I had been standing off and on for seven hours, ’ been alternately' frizzled by sun, soaked by rain, and chilled to the bone by a biting wind, all I could think of was the joy of home and bed. But reaching home was a scramble of the worst description, for after we had disentangled ourselves from the crowd, and escaped death by inches fronn an army of the most dazzling HispanoSuizas, Rolls, and Bentleys (mostly belonging to foreigners), there yet remained the trains to be negotiated, and

if they were overcrowded going, then how can I describe their return? However, in the end the seemingly impossible was accomplished, and my dreams that night were of youthful “ stars ” innumerable, of crowds, and pushing, and straining, and scrambling, and through it all a babel of foreign tongues. Italy, France, Spain, Germany, America —all were represented, and all were busy snatching tennis honours from cur old England. Sad, but true! * * * On Wednesday afternoon I went to see the Russian ballet, which for an all too brief season is with us again. It was two and a-half hours of sheer delight. The first item on the programme was “ Les Sylphides,” with music by Chopin, marvellously played by the orchestra. In this there was onljcne male dancer, the famous Lifar, who dances as I had never dreamed a man could dance. The girls are one and ail marvellously graceful, slim creatures, with sleek black hair centrally parted, and odd, piquant, almost Oriental faces. They are a romantic group, these dancers that Serge Diaghileff has somehow kept going for something like 25 years of ups and downs sufficient to dishearten the least impressionable. Discipline is of the strictest; one and all must obey, and Diaghileff’s word is the first and last. Food, exercise, even amusement is arranged by him. No London life for his troupe, no cabarets, no night clubs, no fashionable hotels or restaurants. The dancers stay at littleknown foreign-run hotels, keeping to themselves, speaking their own language, looking askance at the strange world surrounding them. Pavlova long years ago danced in the early ballets, but she was headstrong and wilful, the stern discipline galled her, and when the chance came she broke free. Karsavina, too, was one of the first stars, but she married an Englishman, became a British subject, and laughed at Serge his rules, and her contract. And so it has gone on. Five years ago there was a financial crash, and the company 'was

disbanded, finally coming together again under the same old regime. I loved my afternoon—in fact, I don’t think I have ever enjoyed any other entertainment quite so much. The beauty of the graceful bodies, the rhythm, the music—all were a marvel of perfection. The setting, too, was fine, for His Majesty's is a beautiful theatre, lending itself to display and pomp. It is Tree’s old theatre, fit setting for his genius, and his happy hunting ground. I shall never forget my first visit to His Majesty’s, nearly 25 years ago, when Tree, then at the height of his fame, was presenting “ The Darling of the Gods.” We dined first at the Carlton, I remember, and whether it was that the glamour of a first visit to London was upon me, or that I was utterly unsophisticated, or a combination of both, plus a very unusual glass of champagne, it seems to me still that Sir Herbert Tree was the greatest of English actors, His Majesty’s the most perfect of theatres, and “ The Darling of the Gods ” the most thrilling of plays. Next to it, I now place the Russian ballet of 1928, regardless of the fact that the critics tell us’ that the glory of the ballet is past, and that no new Pavlova or Karsavina has risen to take the place of those whose name and fame is world wide. I don’t know, of course, but the slim, dark-haired, olive-skinned damsels that in “ Les Sylphides ” danced their way to my heart will remain a vivid memory for many a long day to come. * * * Yet another thing have I seen last week, and that was Saturday’s R.A.F. Pageant at Hendon. I was one of half a million people who for five hours gaped, gasped, and marvelled at the wonders achieved by our airmen and machines. One thrill succeeded another, smothered a shriek and covered our eyes ■with our hands as a machine dived from a height of 2000 feet, and just when we thought a crash to earth was inevitable, up again it zoomed, and as if in sheer exuberance of spirit, lopped

the loop just over our heads. We watched a thrilling battle —the bombing and defence of London. Anti-air-craft guns boomed, enemy bombers crashed and burst into flames, a thick haze of smoke drifted across the aerodrome—it was too unspeakably realistic to contemplate calmly, and as a stranger behind me prayed aloud: Let it not come true in my time, 0 Lord.