Women's Ways

Southland Times, Issue 21431, 27 June 1931, Page 17

Women's Ways

Mr D. N. Mac Diarmid, who recently returned to New Zealand from Heiban after nineteen years’ service with the Sudan United Mission, has received intimation from the Governor-General of the AngloEgyptian Sudan that he has had conferred upon him the honour of membership in the Order of the British Empire. Mr MacDiarmid and his wife are well known for the missionary and educational work they have done in the Sudan, chiefly in the province of Kordofan, where their services have won much appreciation and praise from the Sudan Government. His wife, Mrs Mac Diarmid D.Litt. was formerly Miss Phoebe Harrington, of Pahia, Southland, and after an interesting carreer at the Otago University she taught for a short time in the Souhtland Girls’ High School. She is a sister of Mrs A. L. Adamson of this town, and of Mr A. 0. Harrington, who is on the stuff of the S.B.H.S.

Miss Joan Batten, of Auckland, who is the first New Zealand girl to get a pilot’s certificate in London, gained her flying instruction at the London Aero Club. She also studied engineering at the de Havilland workshops. Her desire to fly came when she had her first flight with Air-Command-er Kingsford-Smth in the Southern Cross at Sydney. Miss Batten, who is twentyone, intends taking up flying as a career and hopes to get her license in Auckland.

Mrs Helen Wills Moody, holder of the Wimbledon Women’s Singles Championship since 1927, intends to defend her title at Wimbledon this year. She lives in California. Suzanne Lenglen, the once supreme player, stated in Paris recently that she had “cut tennis entirely out of her life” and will never play again. She has a dressdesigning business.

Lady Acland, wife of Sir Francis Dyke Acland, has accepted Mr Lloyd George’s invitation to join the Liberal “Shadow Cabinet.” She is the first woman ever to sit in the inner council of the Liberal Party, and her colleagues, with the exception of the three representatives of the Parliamentary Party, are all ex-Ministers. Lady Acland is a Liberal of wide experience, and her assistance and advice on matters of policy will be of great use to the Party leaders.

Miss Isabel Wilford, daughter of Sir Thomas and Lady Wilford (High Commissioner for New Zealand), who has worked her way very steadily to the front on the London stage during the last few years, and has lately been under-studying Miss Tallulah Bankhead, is leading lady in an important new London production.—“ Lean Harvest,” by Ronald Jeans, who hitherto has mainly confined himself to sketches in revues. It has nothing to do with agriculture, Devon, or Eden Phillpotts, and fifteen scenes are required for telling the nonbucolic story. Nigel Bruce, Leslie, Banks, J. H. Roberts, and the brilliantly-promising Diana Wynyard have also been engaged.

Miss Patrica Nelson, daughter of Mrs W. H. Nelson, of Woodville, who left New Zealand about two years ago, has had English stage engagements almost continually ever since. Her speciality is dancing, but she has been doing all kinds of stage work.

She was in a company that made a very successful provincial tour in England with Edgar Wallace’s No. 1 Company, playing “On the Spot”; then Miss Nelsori received offers to go to Paris with a smart revue as the comedienne, to go on. tour in “Leave it to Psinith” (a Wodehouse play), and another to play in a “talkie.” She decided to take the Paris engagement, but before leaving London she took some screen tests which she hopes will be useful to her on her return.

The betrothal of Princess Ileana of Rumania and the Archduke Anion of Austria, son of the Archduke Leopold Salvator, is announced from Berlin. The Archduke, under the name of Prince Antonio of Bourbon, is well known as an airman, and took part in the last round-Europe flight. At the beginning of last year Princess Ileana’s engagement was announced to Count Hockberg, the 25-year-old son of Daisy Princess Pless, but the engagement was broken after objections had been raised by the Rumanian Government. Princess Ileana is 22. This is reported as an “absolute love match.” The Royal pair share enthusiasm for flying sport.

Dr Harriet Clisby, the oldest woman doctor, has died at her home in West Kensington. She was 100 last August. Her early years were spent in Australia. She was seven when the family emigrated to Adelaide, which at that time was little more than forest, with the names of its “streets” nailed on to the trees. Dr. Clisby returned to England to become a nurse in Guy’s Hospital, and went to New York, where she gained her diploma. She had retired from practice when she went back to London in 1911, but she delivered lectures until a few years ago.

An Englishwoman who has carved out a career for herself is Miss Gladys Burlton, who began as “Sixth Form Master” at a boys’ school during the war. Then she wrote to the proprietor of one of the largest West-End stores for an opportunity. He told her to come and find her own job. Before long she was teaching his sales people how to sell. Seven years later she ! ecame general manager of a West-End store herself. The work that no one else was doing drew her again, however, and she started to train shop assistants all over the country. Part of every week she is in the provinces or in Scotland, training the assistants in their own stores. In a month or two, an important trading firm is sending managers to a week’s conference with Miss Burlton on training. She goes to Leeds every week to act as staff manager in a fashion business for which she is reorganizing the staff. She has become so interested while training fashion staffs in the fashions themselves that last month she gave fashion points to a mannequin parade.

An Auckland girl, Miss Ysolinde McVeagh, prominent in amateur dramatic circles, has been engaged by J. C. Williamson, Ltd., to accompany its English comedy company, at present playing “The First Mrs Fraser,” on its tour through New Zealand. She will understudy a number of parts, principally those of Miss Mary MacGregor, in that play and also in the comedies, “Let Us Be Gay” and “Hay Fever.” Miss McVeagh, who is the elder daughter of Mr R. McVeagh, is one of the most popular players in the Auckland Little Theatre Society, having taken principal parts in six of its productions. She had a part in the society’s first production, Shaw’s “Fanny’s First Play,” produced under the direction of the late Mr Herbert J. Bentley. She appeared in Shaw’s “The'Man of Destiny,” in “The Maid of France,” in “Mrs Moonlight,” in “The Man They Buried,” and in the society’s last production, “A Bill of Divorcement.” She has also acted in many other amateur productions in Auckland, including Hastings Turner’s comedy, “Lilies of the Field.”