A MAID IN MAYFAIR

Taranaki Daily News, 26 August 1931, Page 13

A MAID IN MAYFAIR

GOSSIP FROM LONDON TOWN.

THE BACHELOR PRINCE

(By Our Lady Correspondent.) London, June 25.

. It is hard to realise that the Prince of Wales, who celebrates his birthday this week, will be 40, and qinte middleaged, in three 'years’ time. Few of his countless admirers think of lERdI. as much more than a youngster, though he is one of our. war veterans, the greatest glpbe.-trotter now living, and I should say one of the best-informed men of his day. Since he? left Oxford as a, rather, callow youth, the Prince has met everybody worth meeting, and ; there are not many branches of human activity he has not discussed with the leading -.experts of the time. What pleases most people in him is a re-, markably independent but never arrogant level-headed outlook on men and affairs, his charming considerate manners, and the genial s[ orting attitude that mellows his savoir faire. King Edward would have been very, proud of his grandson. piE STATE BALL. Rumour is busy in Mayfair with stories of the raison d’etre of the State Ball at Buckingham Palace, and with the names of Lady May Cambridge and various eligible young men in the Peerage, one of whom the Queen’s niece is said tc be going to marry. According to many people, theball is being held for the express purpose of announcing Lady May’s betrothal, and the young man who is mentioned as her future husband is a duke a year or two younger than she is, and of the Roman Catholic faith. Lady May herself has given those who have been watching her since she came home from South Africa with her parents very little to work upon. She is singularly charming and natural in manner, and to all intents and purposes she has no particular prejudices in favour of this escort or that. At Ascot she was about with each of her cousins in' turn. At the Ascot ball she danced with the three of them and with other' members of their party, and at London dances which she has attended her principal partner has been a member of Lord Athlone’s suite.

ROYAL MUSING.

. The King of Spain seemed to be looking older and rather despondent at , the premiere of Gloria Swanson’s new ,film, “Indiscreet,” which took place ■ in London during the week-end. His fascinating smile came a little less readily, and time after time when he was spoken to by a member of the little party which he accompanied, he seemed to start as though his thoughts had been far away. He has been entertained a great deal in London lately, and all his friends, •are anxious to eheer him up after the trials through which he has lately passed. Constance Ducheee of Westminster gave a little intimate party in his honour the other' day, and at Lady Louis Mountbatten’s ■ house, where he is staying, there are constant gatherings of amusing and interesting people. "He is getting some polo, too; and is •more or less living the kind of life which used to satisfy him on his periodical visits to England in the days before Spain became a Republic, PRINCESS MART AND' SYLLABUBS. A novel party was' given one night this week at the Victorian Exhibition in Bruton Street; when over a hundred guests were invited to meet H.R.H. Princess Mary, Countess of Harewood. The moving spirits’ Of the party were Sir Cecil Harcourt Smith (chairman of the exhibition committee) and Lady Harcourt Smith; Supper was served in the kitchen, with a JI ‘ its Victorian fittings. A feature' of the menu was “Syllabubs.” ‘“Syllabubs” are made . of cream, castor sugar, the juice of lemons, a dash of sherry and brandy, and when mixed are allowed to stand for some hours. They are eaten with a spoon, and arc described as “food and drink for gods and goddesses.” The guests invited to meet Princess Mary included the German, Danish, Japanese, ' Greek and Swedish Ambassadors, Lady ' Ampthill, Lord and. Lady Burnham, Mrs. Stanley Baldwin, Lord and Lady ’ Jellicoe, tho Countess of Minto, Sir ■ William Llewellyn, P.R.A. Sir Nigel • and Lady Playfair, the Dean of Windsor, and Prince Nicholas of Greece.

RIDING IN THE ROW. The widowed Duchess of Northumberland is among the well-known people now riding regularly in Rotten Row. She takes her four younger children out most; days, and the little girls, Lady Betty and Lady Diana Percy, excellent riders for their years, are taking full advantage of this practice. The Duchess has not ridden to any extent for a long time, and though she assumed the . Mastership of the Percy Hounds, of which the late Duke was Master for so long, she- does not hunt. Now, however, she is taking up riding seriously again, and her children as well as her neighbours in Northumberland hope that, when the season comes round again, she will go out with the Percy hounds, even though she does not actually hunt them. The young Duke is a keen rider to hounds, but his studies prevent him taking any active part in a hunt just now. The understanding is, when he takes over the management, of his. estates from' his mother, he will follow in .the footsteps of preceding Dukes and become a Master of Foxhounds.

PRINCES-AND PALETTES. The war, the wireless ■ and the gramophone between them have slain one Victorian jabherwoek. It is no longer even a suburban tradition- that everybody must be able to strum a piano or daub a palette. If these ac-

complishments are practised, the postwar moderns expect the practitioner to achieve a really high standard. Where, the Victorian tradition still lingers is in royal palaces, and the royal artists do manage to maintain professional standards. Particularly is this the ease in painting. Both Princess Louise and Lady “Pat” Ramsay are regular exhibitors at London art shows. The King of Sweden’s brother, Prince -Eugen, ranks amongst the best contemporary artists. And now Prince Nicholas of Greece has a one-man show in New Bond Street that is quite up to the Chelsea hall-mark. MATHEMATICAL SLIM-MERS. For / girls who are, in the school parlance, “slippy at figures” a career is open that so far is not overcrowded. Only in 1020 did chartered accountancy open its gates to women, when the first of her sex to enter it was Miss Harris Smith, a woman accountant of< such high repute that her work was held to qualify her for entrance without the usual examination. The first woman to take, and pass, the latter was Miss Ethel Watt in 1924. There are now 33 women chartered accountants. One of them, Miss D. N. Hamlyn, after being articled for the regulation three years to a well-known firm of chartered accountants, and passing the examination, now has a private practice, worked from her own home, which she finds extremely interesting. Dealing as she does with different kinds of business, as well as with the accounts of private individuals, she gets plenty of variety and much amusement, though at times she may glimpse something like tragedy behind the figures. FEMININE WAR PLAYS.

We shall shortly have not merely one hut two war plays staged at the West. End, one this week and a later one/ dealing exclusively with the role of women in the Big Adventure. It will be interesting to see how they appeal to the theatre- public,’ especially the women, who nowadays constitute threefourths of the latter, and what runs they achieve. Mostly our dramatists and story writers “feature” women in the wai* : ab iliirses or estdipinet flirt's,;. One at le'dst ’Of fhe hew playp wjii slipw' them as ttp-the-lihe id bier' dr ivbrd ’ at the wheel of ambulances, and, I believe,' wearing

shrapnel helmets. I never had the for® tune to meet a lady in a tin hat on the Western Front, except in estamingts, where it was merely an Arry and ’Arriet exchange Of chapeflux. But lam not suggesting there was “no such pusson.” CURLS ON THE COURSE. The large hats worn by some of the very smartest women at Ascot may have scared theatre goers and kinema fans, but they rejoiced all the wig-makers. If it really means a return to the Victorian cartwheel style of chapeau, ,or anything like it, society ladies will be wanting a regular and abundant supply of artful artificial curls to camouflage the shorn locke. Because hair must be worn fairly short for sporting occasions, which are nowadays part and parcel of Mayfair’s life, and when My Lady sallies forth on dress occasions with her big-rimmed hat on she will need any amount of curl padding. lam told that Bond Street beauty specialists have had their best Ascot on record. Not that they did any particular business with the totalisator, but that between curls and complexion make-ups to suit the new and rather trying fashions they did good business. LADY HOUSTON. It has been interesting to see Lady Houston at Ascot this year.' Social gatherings of this type do not, as a rule, appeal to her, and, in any case, she likes to spend most of her time ip. the beauti--ful Channel Islands, where her home is, or in cruising in her comfortable yacht, Liberty. But she seemed thoroughly to enjoy Ascot, and, surrounded by members of the party she was entertaining there, did the whole programme very thoroughly. People who did not know her by sight were very anxious to have her pointed out to them, especially those who are interested in aviation, and have so much admiration for her ■backing of the Schneider Trophy. • She herself was anxious to meet people, too, and during her visits to the paddock she was rarely alone, generally being engaged in animated conversation with notable folk who had been presented to her. Her brother-in-law, Lord Byron, the brother of her first husband, was her guide most of the time.