ENGLISH IN SWITZERLAND.

Taranaki Daily News, 20 June 1931, Page 19 (Supplement)

ENGLISH IN SWITZERLAND.

(By i'

Erances Forrest.)

Life in Switzerland has a quiet side quite unknown to those 'birds of passage who every year flock to the mountains with skis, skates, and dancing shoes. On the shores of Lake Geneva has grown up a little colony of English people, who, for one reason or another, have decided to make Switzerland then permanent home. They are mostly elderly folk; retired officers of the army and navy, colonial civil servants who have laid down the "white man s burden,” couples with growing families who have come to take advantage of Switzerland’s excellent schools, and elderly ladies with slender incomes and few home ties. They live in small villas or flats, and every evening meet at the vario i clubs. Twice a week or so, they go to the Kursaal, where the orchestra plays eveiy afternoon, and where you can get a really “English” tea. The servant problem is as much talked of her. as anywhere else, and the pleasant peace o li?e in the villas, and flats is sometimes marred by temperamental disturbances with the one German-Swiss domestic who is, more often than not, 1 difficile. The external life of Switzerland affects the colony little, but the English folk appreciate the well-ordered country where unemployment is not known, and where everyone seems prospeious. A smattering of Frdhcli or German solves the language problem. Living in a country but having no say in its government has the ellect of lessening interest in politics. Even the situation in England is rarely discussea by the exiles.

Whether they are really saving money or not is a debatable point. Tine there is no English income tax; but the rent of a very small unfurnished villa is £220 a year and unfurnished flats range from 300 to SOO francs a month. The°rate of exchange is fixed —'25 francs a £l. You have to pay 14 francs for quite a small shoulder of lamb, fiv e francs a pound for the cheapest tea, and other prices are correspondingly high. The little English church is always crowded. Perhaps it is a bit of ‘ home to the exiles. But, on the whole homesickness” scarcely affects them, for Switzerland brings all under , its spell sooner or later. The country is always beautiful, especially in spring, when wild flowers carpet the earth, and later, \yhen the woods are ablaze, with autumn colour. And every day on the shores of Geneva you wait, consciously or unconsciously, for the miracle of sunset, when a great ball of fire sinks down at the western end of the lake, and all the vast circle of mountains peaks is suffused with rosy light. HOT SAVOURY SANDWICHES. Ingredients. —For the paste: 6oz. of self-raising flour; salt; 1 egg; 3 tablespoonsful olive oil; diluted tomato sauce. For the filling: Alb. white fish; 2oz. grated white cheese; salt and pepper; a little olive oil; a few cloves of o’arlic; 2 or 3 tomatoes; 1 egg. ° Sieve the flour into a bowl, add salt, and make a well in centre. Break in the egg, add the olive oil and a little tomato sauce. Beat the wet ingredients, then add the flour gradually, adding more tomato sauce if required to form a dough. Roll out very thin and cut small circles with a tumbler. Have filling ready. Boil, drain, skin, bone and flake the fish. Add to it the cheese, salt, pepper and olive oil. Skin and pound the garlic to a cream, and and add this with the egg and the skinned and. chopped tomatoes. T*ne mixture should be loose; but if it seems too loose, add some breadcrumbs. Put some of this filling on one pastry circle, cover with another, and use up all in this way. Place the sandwiches on a greased tin, and bake fairly quickly, Serve hot, with a savoury sauce.

Face Lifting. Women anxious to regain their lost youths crowded by hundreds into a Pennsylvania hotel recently to watch a face-lifting operation, states a New York correspondent. The patient was Mrs. ■ Martha Petelle, a veteran film actress, who had been promised a leturn to her “mother” roles if a few wrinkles were removed. At first, one side of Aire. Petclle’s face was youthful, and the other old, for only half the operation could, be performed at a single sitting. A plastic surgeon performed the operation and 'he made tup incisions above the ear and neck, pulled the skin straight and smoothed away the signs of age. An audience of 1500 watched the operation, which the doctor had intended to perform behind a screen until the insistent demand of those present changed his plans and enabled them to watch the first facial surgery ever performed, it is said, in public. Mrs. Petelle, under a local anaesthetic, talked during the operation with her daughter, while Dr. Qrum chatted with the audience. An orchestra played jazz tunes, film cameras took records —and five women fainted.