REHEARSAL IN THE ABBEY

Southland Times, Issue 23182, 24 April 1937, Page 7

REHEARSAL IN THE ABBEY

PREPARATIONS FOR CORONATION TIMING BY A STOPWATCH • (United Press Assn.—Telegraph Copyright) LONDON, April 22. The Duke of Norfolk used a stopwatch to time the Coronation rehearsals at Westminster Abbey, the second of which was attended by the Duke and Duchess ot Gloucester, and the Duke and Duchess of Kent. The Duke of Gloucester, who, as senior Duke of the Royal Family will kneel before the King, knelt before the place the King will occupy, while the Duke of Kent knelt nearby in the section reserved for peers. Both repeated the words of the Oath of Homage. The King has directed that a personal message of sympathy and goodwill be sent to ex-servicemen in hospitals throughout the Empire on the occasion of the Coronation. It was stated in the House of Commons that the estimated expenditure from the public funds on the Coronation would be £689,400. AN EXTRAORDINARY JOURNEY AIR TRAVEL IN SECLUSION (Received April 23, 7.25 p.m.) LONDON, April 22. The Maharanee of Jodhpur arrived from Karachi by air to witness the Coronation. She was enabled by remarkable precautions to maintain the lifelong purdah necessitating that neither man nor woman who are not of the Maharaja’s or the Maharanee’s caste getting a glimpse of the Maharanee’s heavily veiled face or touching her food. The Maharaja, despite an income of £BOO,OOO a year was unable to hire a special plane and accordingly reserved a cabin in a K.L.M. plane in which the crew was locked in the cockpit at each end of a stage until the Maharanee left the plane and reached her private room. Finally at Croydon the Maharanee left the plane by a canvas covered tunnel and entered a motor-car, the windows of which were over, and drove to London where she was similarly secluded.