Buying a Spade.

Taranaki Daily News, 6 December 1930, Page 6 (Supplement)

Buying a Spade.

The man who was known as “shopr walker to the Royal Family” retired recently after 25 years’ service .in Harrod’s Stores, writes a Londoner. Mr. John H. Lovendahl showed the Prince of Wales to the toy department almost every Christmas when he was a small boy, and when Princess Mary was a child he helped her to choose books. Prince George, Prince Henry, anil the Duke of York all knew him. ‘“More chance than plan led to my being the ‘royal man,’ as we call it,” he told a reporter. “Queen Alexandra and the Empress of Russia came to the store one day a few. minutes before they were expected. Sir Richard Burbridge, our managing director, f was not down to receive them, and I stepped into the breach. Thenceforward . the honour continued to be mine, and I do not suppose any other shopwalker ha's known so many crowned heads; Not long ago,” he- continued, “Princess Mary came in to buy a spade. I was surprised .to see the. businesslike .manner she put her foot on the blade to test its size. She told me that though there were ‘hundreds of spades’ at Goldsbbrough Hall one could never be found for her personal use.”

Menus Must Be Short. Woman’s latest form of public entertainment is the festival dinner, writes an Englishman. Instead of dancing, watching a matinee, or playing bridge in aid of her pet charity, she finds yR much more amusing to dine at the Mansion House, the Guildhall, or one of the smart hotels. She makes speeches or listens to them, and hands over her subscription direct as the result of an appeal which touches some responsive chord in her heart. She likes to speak ia public.. She 'likes to hear members of her own sex speak, and she is beoinniim to appreciate a carefully arranged nicu and the best wines, lhe menu, however, must not be too long. At the White Rose Festival dinner at the Mansion House recently, when Princess Beatrice presided, the menu comprised sole, cutlets, pheasant, jelly and ices, and coffee. Counsel on Skirts.

'■ During the hearing of a personal injury claim at a London Court recently, it was argued by counsel that a young woman had suffered permanent disfigurement because he had broken the tibia and fibula, of the left leg, which had not mended in alignment, states an exchange. He suggested that, in view of the fine texture of modern stockings, the injury would always be able to be seen. Judge Owen Thompson, K.C., remarked that fashions might change. Counsel replied: “I do not want to go into the leg-line of skirts, but it is likely to be a long time before the disfigurement is covered.” The juiy, after an hour’s deliberation, awarded the young woman, who sustained lifer injury in a motoring accident, £l5O. Luxurious Travel.

The latest development in railway night travel, designed especially to appeal to women, is a sleeping carriage carried out in jade green. Walls, doors, curtains, and bed blankets are all of jade green. The first of these carriages has been decorated by Sir Charles Allom for the London and North-East-ern Railway, states the Daily Mail. On an underframe of steel ten separate bedrooms have been built, connected by a side corridor wider than usual. Each pair of rooms is provided with a communicating door. Stainless silver-plated fittings take the place •of the usual brass or bronze type, and a system of forced ventilation, similar to that in Atlantic liners, will be used. Electrici'v is employed instead of gas, both for lighting and for heating. Coffee and Kings.

Coffee and kings have had long association, writes an English correspondent. We get a minor sidelight into tl home life of King Albert .of the Belgians by His Majesty’s confession that “at home at Brussels I always uip my bread in ray coffee, but the Queen docs not like it.” A lesg blameless monarch in the long ago dipped biscuits in his coffee, but not, alas, in the presence of his Queen; for one can still see in the apartments of Du Barry at Versailles the grate at .- which Louis XV. ■used to boil coffee for them both. On one occasion he let it boil over on to the delicate hands of his mistress, who bundled him down the narrow spiral staircase in her rage, and got a casket of pearls the next morning as a peace offering.