A MAID IN MAYFAIR

Taranaki Daily News, 28 August 1930, Page 17

A MAID IN MAYFAIR

! GOSSIP FROM LONDON TOWN.

i THE CHERRY BLOSSOM PRINCESS’, i ' < 1 ’'- / ■ '■ ■" ■ i ; ■; . ■ ; } (From Our Lady Correspondent) i > ■ / London; July -3i ' ■ London /Hah quite fallen in love with : the pretty bride of Pipnpe Takamatsu. .She seems to be one of the daintiest -of Japanese ladies, and she wears her ’ English .clothes as though she /were used to-appearing in nothing elec. s>l hear, however, that for the Queen's benefit she has brought with her .several ) exquisite Japanese costumes in the loveliest colours,,and worked , with the . most beautiful native embroideries, and .has worn these in theiptilaee when there jwas no public eeremoiiy to She :fite in wonderfully w-ith ! the generally iaceepted idea of her native “cherry ’blossom” land; but her knowledge of (Western ideas and customs is quite'.extensive, and the Royal ladies have- been delighted by the charm of her conversation. - . , \ A DAINTY. PRINCESS. i „■ •. The- progress of: our Royal Japanese Visitors to the city was, quite a spectacular. success. From innumerable sombre-. London ‘facades ’ fluttered the Vivid rising sun ensign, and respectable Crowds, lining the route, gave the King’s youthful guests a fine ovation. The glamour and enthusiasm of the occasion melted even Oriental stolidity. Members of the Japanese staff, waved their hands from their court carriages, s(nd flashed their teeth like Tennyson’s

fresh young captains. Prince Takamatsu looks'an eminently serious-young man. In the suburbs ’ they would call him a high brow. :But his dainty little Princess, whose Eastern physiognomy is extremely, attractive, was . all vivacity and gay elan. She answered the ovations with sparkling almond eyes and pretty gestures, and even the impassive Life Guards, their baldricks capturing gazed down at her in adjuration. : BRED IN THE BONE. At the. International Horse Show I '■ saw ’Princess Mary’s elder boy, the young Lord Lascelles, jn ,the Royal box. He was delighted in the jumping and the fine horsemanship of the picked riders from all over Europe. Lord Lonsdale, who sat with him. for a time, was telling friends afterwards how intelligently he followed everything and what a fine rider he will make one day. Horses, of course, are his mother’s passion, and Lord Hare wood is an unusually fine horseman and rider to hounds. Young Lord Lascelles must have inherited from them both something of the sensei of horsemanship which he possesses. His sporting interest delighted Lord Lonsdale, whose main ob'ject in life is to help on every branch of British, sport, especially that which concerns horses. • ; * • if WISE UPBRINGING. ; This hoy of Princess Mary’s, and his younger brother, are being brought up in a most healthy w’ay. They go about ’ a great deal, but never as celebrities, and: they take their places in whatever 'in going on just as do the children of their parents’ friends. They are as natural as possible in company, and ■ have been encouraged to express their opinions sensibly and without any fuss. If they go to a children’s party they are • ' treated, at their mothers express reguest, exactly as are the other guests, fnd;, they themselves are allowed to return hospitality in their own nursery tram time to time. Princess Mary’s most earnest desire is that they shall not be regarded, nor regard themselves as children with special privileges or special standing. At all times she insists upon the greatest possible consideration from them for other’ people. ROSES FOR ROYALTY. I met, at the close of Alexandra Rose Day in London, a charming little lady, who: was very proud of the result of her as a seller. Her “pitch” was Buckingham Palace, and, beginning with a personal visit to the King and Queen in their own rooms, she was permitted to go right through the palace and offer her roses iji every departMiss Elaine Howlett/ a godchild of the Queen and the daughter of the King’s most valued personal attendant. Their Majesties are; very attached to Miss Howlett, ■ whom: they hare known from babyhood, and ; each

year she is escorted through the palace in this way as a rose-seller, the King and Queen themselves buying the first blooms from her. Ono of the plain clothes detectives on duty at the palace takes her under his wing, and - their rouhd of the great building takes.several -hours to complete. , LADY DIANA’S PAGEANT. ;. Nobody jean accuse Lady Oxford of lack :of energy. She serves on scores of committees, she entertains and is entertained, she “advises,” and now—she is taking part in a pageant. It is in connection with a ball which Lady Diana Cooper is organising, and, in a series of tableaux which will portray .“living posters” illustrating the woj-k and the wires of various firms of international importance,. Lady Oxford is to impersonate knives. Whether they are fruit; fish or ordinary table knives is not, at the; monlent, to. bpv revealed, bitt there is. no. doubt,that her “expression” of them, will be entertaining. I arrived at Lady, Cunard’js- house, in the middle o : f a reheaysal of the other'/“posters,” and found |Lady Oxford standing hat-, less in Grofevcnow Square, , wearing the thinnest/of white blouses and' a short black skirt, and. signalling wildly for a taxi. ' She ■‘xyas full of excitement about her little bit of' the show; and : as energetic as a debut-ante in her first ‘ season. \ A FIGURE OF CHARITY. Lady Diana was busy directing, explaining, urging, pleading in Lady Conard’s beautiful drawing-room. She had on a hat which must have been well over & yard round, of the same lovely blue as her eyes, and, literally, covering. both shoulders. Her dress,, was the ' very softest of blush rose pink, long enough to hide her ankles, and in spite ' of the turmoil of rehearsing which was going on all round her, her face was wreathed in smiles and she was. perfectly calm and unruffled. She herself is to be h. figure of charity in the pageant, and thinks she will suggest the part by wearing a nun’s habit and an enormous stiff white coif. But she : was too busy working out the most effective costumes for the precious stones .in a jewels poster to have any time to discuss her own in detail. Soap, by 5 the way, is to be represented in the pageant, in terms of glistening . silver tissue and lots of bubble tinted balloons. CHARLES KINGSLEY’S HOME. Chelsea, though unhappily losing much of its old-world charm through the modern, passion for pulling down, still possesses an “Old Church” that line a monument .dating back to the fourteenth century; it has also a delightful old rectory, the home of Archdeacon Bevan, who has just, at the ago of 70, retired from his office. He and his wife —she is a daughter of the eighth 'Lord Moles worth —were always lending their beautiful garden for charity fetes. Like the church, the place is full of interesting associations. .Charles Kingsley’s mother, when his father was Chelsea’s rector, used to entertain the parishioners to a garden tea in the summer. In her huge poke bonnet and lace mittens she. cut bread and butter at a long table under the famous Elizabethan mulberry tree while her son Charles, ■who as a boy in his teens was considered ugly by his schoolgirl friends, carried round cups among the guests. SPINSTER HOTEL PROPS. I was down in Surrey the other night' at one of the most successful of the country house hotels'in the Home Cbun- ■ ties; where at this time of the year the management is refusing about' thirty applications for rooms a day. Every single room is booked up, with breaks of only a day or two, until the end of October. I met there a well-known chartered accountant, whose firm spe-

I eialises in the audits of hotel accounts, I and wc discussed the reasons why some hotels are such successes, and others, with apparently equal chances, are 'failures. In his view success depends almost entirely on elderly unattaiched ladies. They* are the backbone of the residential hotel business, and when they once become attached to a hotel remain unchangingly faithful to it. This particular hotel has a wonderful “spinster connection,” - which can be counted on to fill half the rooms 'all the year round. THE BURDEN OK BEAUTY. I have been reading about the new exercises the smart Parisienne is inflicting upon herself in order that she may .acquire the correct carriage for the long evening frocks. There are four “movements,” one to improve the shoulders, a second to secure the right waist and hip contours, a third to induce a graceful walk in spite of hampering draperies, and a fourth to correct any tendency to'“flat foot.” Each exercise has to be practised before the mirror for ten minutes every morning. Forty •'•minutes a.day .must, therefore, be given over to -physical jerks, and, according to beauty specialists, at least the same amount of time should be devoted to massage and skin treatment, and a further ten minutes to manicure, fifteen j minutes to hair drill, and threequarters ’ of an hour or so to “resting quietly in a darkened room with wads of medicated cotton-wool over the eyes.” There seems precious little time left for anything but sleeping, A WONDERFUL HOUSE. All kinds of descriptions have been circulated at different times about the wonders of Lady Louis Mountbatten s Park Lane home, Brook House. It was built to the plan of her uncle, the late Sir Ernest Cassel, who was said to have been guided to a large extent by suggestions from King Edward. Since her marriage Lady Louis has gained the reputation of having entirely modernised it, and there have been reports of glass futurist pictures, rooms which -were all angles and squares. This week there was a delightful little luncheon party there, and Lady Louis’ guests, who were entertained by her husband because she is ill, were more than charmed to find that the reception rooms contained none of these extraordinary features. , The whole house is an example, in the best possible taste, of a comfortable English home, with restful colour schemes and grace: ful furniture. No wondei’ Lady Louis’ friends like to be entertained there. ' ' PENALISING THE GENEROUS. The point raised by Lady Cynthia Mosley that property left to the National Trust should be exempt from payment of estate duty is an important one, and it is cheering to hear that Mr. Snowden is giving the suggestion sympathetic consideration. Lady Cynthia, as her father’s daughter, is personally interested in two historic castles left to the National Trust, which body has no funds with which to pay the considerable duties, and it looks as if the castles will have to revert to the es- , tate. The late Marquess Curzon left Bbdiam Castle to the nation — a, princely tri ft. It was always his intention that it should pass 'to the nation, ' and he would have handed it over immediately on purchase, but for the fact that it required considerable restoration. Accordingly, he kept it in his own hands during liis lifetime,’ as he said no Government department would ever expend the requisite’ money, and 'he defrayed ' the cost of restoration himself. Talking of ,hCr distinguished father, Lady Cynthia as a House of Commons speaker is very reminiscent of the George Nathaniel Curzon of the ’nineties. She possesses a musical voice, excellent diction, and a persuasive manner. Moreover she listens to the debates with rapt intentness. A SUNNY SOLUTION. At last someone has hit on a solution • to’ the problem of getting sun-tanned in such a way that the tan only adds to, rather than detracts from, the attractiveness of a low-necked sleeveless evening dress. You simply decide on the evening decolletage which suits you best, be it a deep V shape, an oval, a round, or a square. Then you have your bathing suit and your tennis frocks made with exactly the same neckline. These dresses, like the evening gown, are sleeveless, thus enabling you to get uniformly tanned, by the sun, and to avoid the ugly contrast between a sunburned neck and white shoulders. It is quite one of th'-e brightest hotions of the holiday sedson, because nearly everyone is out to get a lovely goldy-brown skin, in spite of the beauty specialists’ dictum that “milk--and-roses” complexions are fashionable. HARRY LAUDER’S BLUEBELL. If West End rumour is true, wc may shortly see Miss Jose Collins back in the footlight gleam again. The suggestion is, however, that she will return, not to her former musical comedy triumphs but in variety show. It seems some time ago now since we saw Jose, | but still longer since we admired the ! scarlet stockings of Lottie, her gifted and vivacious mamma, at the old-time j Tivoli music-hall. Miss Jose made her 1 debut, I fancy, as a small child in the J role of Sir Harry Lauder’s bluebell, so frequently mentioned in “I Love a Las- J sie.” She made a tremendous musical j comedy success, in “The Southern Maid,” “The Last Waltz,” “Sybil,” “Our Nell,” and, above all, as the dark.and sinuous heroine of “Maid of the Mountains.” IN THE (PARK. It was a baking hot morning, so I decided on a swim in the Serpentine.' No: dainty society frocks were visible down the once fashionable promenade under the trees beside the Row, but Mr. Cunninghame Graham was riding his unbobbed Arab. All but one of the horsewomen rode astride, and now, I notice, they are sporting spurs. In the case

of park hacks these are as purely ornamental as a six-shooter would be — sheer feminine swank, in fact. One young man, a fine rider, beautifully mounted, rode without a coat. He wore a sleeveless jumper and his shirt sleeves somehow gave him a smart Spanish Toreador effect. I found a very motley crowd at Mr. Lansbury.’s Lido, and. the surrounding park completely vulgarised. It looks like an urban.common the day after, tho fair.. After surveying the water and the Lidoists I decided that Westminster swimming baths would suit me better. ANOTHER BUNCH OE PORTIAS. On Call Day, at the four Inns of Court, the unusually large number of 13-5 students will present themselves for ceremonial admission to the Bar of England and Wales. Eight of them are women —three at Gray’s Inn, two at the Middle Temple, two at the Inner Temple, and one.at Lincoln’s Inn. Most of 'them have passed through universities. They are Ruth Epstein and Alexandra Millicent Christidcs, both of London University; Ruth Haring and Nora

Mary -Eastwood, both of Manchester University; Joan Baker Alexaudci, of St. Hilda’s College, Oxford; Joscimce Marguerite Greenwood, of Leeds University; Phyllis Mabel Martin, an administrative officer of the London Couni ty Council; and Edith Vera Cohen, or j Hampstead. These admissions will bring ! up the total of women barristers-at- * law to nearly 120. More than half the ! total candidates are Dominion and Coli onial students who will not practise ' in this country. REASSURING TEACUPS. It seems that psychology playa an : important part even in the sale of aero- ! plane tickets, especially to women. Tho i manager of a travel agency tells me I tliat the daily teatime flights over London advertised with posters showing tea being served in the air have done niore than anything else to give an impetus to civil flying. The very idea of teacups proves reassuring, and has induced even old ladies of over '/0 to venture into the air. The pictures .of dashing pilots wearing special flying kit and grim-looking helmets have not proved-good business, because they conveyed an impression that flying was only: for 'heroes..- Teacups have given to flying an everyday suburban atmosphere quite unassociated with danger.-