London Gossip

Southland Times, Issue 20111, 23 February 1927, Page 13

London Gossip

(From Our Correspondent.) London, December. I hear that Lord and Lady Cardigan are thinking of giving up their charming cottage, overlooking the famous churchyard at Stoke Poges. At present they are looking round for a large house, where they will be able to entertain. Lady Cardigan is very excited about it, as her father-in-law, the Marquis of Ailesbury. has promised to furnish the house as soon as they find what they want. Their little cottage is one of the most delightful examples of early domestic architecture in the South of England, and it arouses almost as much comment among American tourists as the quiet churchyard of Gray’s Elegy. This summer Stoke Poges nearly rivalled Stratford-on-Avon in popularity, partly because of the rumour that the famous windows in the church were going to be sold for re-erection in America. Hundreds of people flocked to see them . I caught sight of Mrs Ronald Hamilton, just back from the Continent, and very little altered since the days when hse was Miss Sarah Brooke and enjoyed the reputation of being the best dressed actress on the London stage. Clever and attractive, many of us remember Sarah Brooke when she played with Forbes-Robertson, Wyndham, Tree, Waller and other great actor-managers. By her marriage to Lord George Hamilton’s son Ronald, a cousin of the Duke of Abercorn, Miss Brooke, daughter of the late Major J. Hannah, of Edinburgh, I fancy, allied herself with more noble families than any other stage favourite.

Mr. Ronald Hamilton is related to Lord Lascelles, has a dazzling kinship with marquises and earls, and is not only cousin to the Duke of Abercorn, but also to their Graces of Buccleuch and Marlborough, and the Duchesses of Leeds and Devonshire. Some parents whose sons are home for the holidays from the public schools are having quite a gay time being taught to dance by their young hopefuls. Dance lessons are now included at most public schools, and the boys learn all the latest dances. Marlborough, for instance, prides itself on its Charleston, and as well as practising the steps during the official weekly dancing lesson the boys Charleston to keep warm while waiting for football matches to begin. One of the Marlborough Charleston experts, who has imbued his parents with the craze since his return for the holidays, is young Tony Belcher, George Belcher’s 14-year-old son. Since his arrival home, both Mr. and Mrs Belcher have been spending much of their spare time practising the steps, and when the other night they gave a Christmas party at their Knightsbridge studio, their guests spent most of the evening learning the latest steps from Marlborough. When I was chatting with Mrs Louis Botha at a recent first night she was laughing at the enthusiasm of dancers for the Charleston. She said that the kaffir girls cn her farm in the Transvaal dance it. and have always danced it, with real joie de vivre. There is a slight difference between the way we dance it and the kaffir style, and our method is more sophisticated. But Mrs Botha traced the resemblance. The most interesting study for the psychologist, in tovyn, at the moment, is surely the audience which is to be found night after night facing Diaghileff’s ballet at the Lyceum. Fierce arguments are going on as to where some of the ballet fans come from. Some of'them carry eccentricity to such a point that neither Bloomsbury nor Chelsea, homes of unusual humans, will own them. Young men with mufflers which appear to have been torn from the ballet’s most modem scenery and young men in magenta or green shirts are mild examples. The young men who wear mother o’ pearl shell flowers in their coats are puzzling many people, but the most unusual young person that I have seen there is the Eton-cropped miss wearing a dinner jacket and a silk hat —a man’s hat which she put on when retiring to her car. Have vou heard a new slang word that our bright young people have just invented ? It is “marabout,” and is used for describing anything old-fashioned or dowdy. It seems to be a very elastic word, however, and at the Kit Cat the other night I found it being applied to everything from one’s best enemies to a drink of which someone did not approve.

The Duchess of York set the fashion at Home in Real Alaska Gold Seal Furs and her Royal Highness is reported to be bringing a great number of them to N.Z. with her. Readers will be pleased to know that Madame Menere will be showing Real Alaska Gold Seals on her Dominion tour commencing at Invercargill in March.— (Advt.)