A MAID IN MAYFAIR

Taranaki Daily News, 27 October 1932, Page 14

A MAID IN MAYFAIR

GOSSIP FROM LONDON TOWN. DUKE OF CONNAUGHT AT BAGSHOT (From Our Lady Correspondent. ■ i London, Sept. 1. Although pressing invitations have been extended to the Duke of Connaught to pay a visit to the Highlands, he has definitely declined them all and mil remain at his country house at Bagshot Park. Bagshot has great attachments for the Duke. It was there that he took his bride and where most of the family were brought up. Moreover, he has made many improvements to the estate and has spent much time in laying out the gardens and grounds. It was he who introduced the famous rhododendron hedge which, when, in bloom, is the sight of the neighbourhood. The Dulce has deceided not to go north on account of the long train' journey. With increasing age he finds travelling very fatiguing.

PUMPING MRS. BALDWIN.

' Mrs. Baldwin is making great fun of her experiences in Ottawa. Tliere is no more homely figure in public life than the wife of the Unionist Leader. But Mrs. Baldwin has one invaluable attribute for one in her position. She never tells you to what extent her husband takes her into his confidences in political matters. But, ,ho We ver much she may know, and it is suspected that she knows a great deal, she always maintains invincible silence. The people who meet her here in London have got to know this more or less. In Ottawa it was different. Everyone, . she tells you with a smile,, was trying to pump her. With all the normal avenues of information closed —the publicity side - of the conference admittedly left much to be desired —anyone who might be expected to know what was going on behind the scenes was literally pestered with questions. Mrs. Baldwin was one of them.

A “QUIET” WEDDING,

It is noff'easy to keep, a wedding "quiet” when the bride-to-be is a Prime Minister’s daughter. Miss Joan MacDonald’s original, intention was to make simplicity the keynote of all the arrangements for the ceremony at picturesque Wendover. But it is not to be. Tire Congregational Church will seat 400 and it promises to be crowded to capacity. Moreover, the village folk are proposing to decorate the route from Wendover to Chequers with flags and banners. There are to be imported pipers outside the church, and the Press photographers will constitute a guard of honour in themselves. Not since Lady May Cambridge was married down in Sussex has there been so much public interest taken in a village wedding. Among other recipients of invitations .are Mr. and Mrs. Stanley Baldwin. The joke of it is that the card of invitation! bears a little map showing you how to reach Chequers, and how to get from Chequers to Wendover. I imagine there is not a single road, lane or pathway within ten miles of Chequers that Mr. Baldwin has. not tramped in the course' 6f ; his rambles.

TENNIS TALKIE.

I wonder if Mrs. “Bunny” Austin will be able to resist the old lure of the cinema when she arrives in America to see her husband play in the American lawn tennis championship. She is sure to have some tempting invitations, for she and her.husband have promised to make a stay at' Hollywood beforb they come back home.' As Miss Phyllis Konstain, she was rapidly making a name in filmland when she met and' fell in love with the idol of the British lawn tennis courts. And what a catch “Bunny” Austin himself would be . from the American producer’s'point of view, if his amateur status, did not prevent him from being “shot” for the films! He has incontestably the most classic style of any player today. A slow motion of him on the courts would be a triumph of rhythmic grace.

ACTRESS PHILOSOPHER.

I know experienced and prematurely bald stage managers who will snort with derision at the mere notion of an actress who is a philosopher. Yet even that palpable anomaly in Thespian femininity exists.' At the Comedy Theatre last week a charming French actress, Mlle. Reine Paulet, made her stage debut in London. This lady not only is an accomuplished actress, but an occontplished linguist as well. She speaks unusual tongues, too, Hindu, Japanese, and Arabic, and, though still only twenty-two .years of age, was a pupil of the great Maeterlinck. But her most astonishing distinction, I think, is that she is a doctor of philosopsy, and, moreover, is reputed to have got that impressive degree at the tender age of sixteen. What a relief, at rehearsals, to have a Ph.D. to handle instead of an emotional earthquake.

COMEDIANS AND TRAGEDY.

The latest philosophy of laughter —it is really only an elaborate dressing of an older one —is that it is a survival of primitive hostility. When we laugh heartily at some great joke, we are but reacting atavistically to the fanged grimace of the angry eaveman. I believe this theory is utter balderdash, but is certainly receives some support from the attitude of great comedians. All of them have a secret ambition to play Hamlet. Not content with conquering mirth, they scorn “clowning,” and want to be tragedians. I have never known an exception in the case of male comedians. And now I hear that Miss Gertrude Lawrence declares openly how she much prefers her present “serious” part in “Behold We Live” at the St. James’ to the comedy in which she is nearly supreme.

AMONG THE CANNIBALS.

The strange story of Mary Kingsley’s adventurous life is to be officially told, at last. Though she worked with her father for a great part of her life, her own brief public career lasted for barely five years. But, during that time she captured public attention to an extraordinary degree, and Mr. Stephen Gwynn, who knew her well, has been oc-

cupied for some time with the story of her life. When her father died she decided to attempt the completioil of his unfinished work by studying native custom where it was least affected by civilisation. Those parts of West Africa where cannibalism, amongst other things, flourished unchecked appeared to her the best for her purpose;: and she went there, travelling as a trader, with no European companion. The- dangers she ran were enormous. But, though she had meetings at close quarters with gorillas, leopards, crocodiles and cannibals she wrote of them always from the humorous point of view. And by the simple process of making people laugh she persuaded them also to read; of abstruse negro customs in law and religion.

'MOTORING EPISODES.

A friend who has just motored back from Cornwall told me of a rather thrilling accident which befel her on the journey. She started to do the run in a single day. After motoring a couple of hundred miles, the warmth of the sun and the whirring of the engine overcome her, and she literally fell asleep at the wheel. She was awakened to find she had driven slap through a wayside hedge, buckling her axle and damaging the wings. I remember that a similar accident once befell Sir Thomas Inskip. At one point the road near Carlisle took a ■ sharp turn. Instead of taking the turn the car drove clean through a garden-wall, and came to rest amongst the cabbages and beans. Fortunately, no one was hurt. But it is easy to understand how falling asleep at the wheel might produce a fatal accident.

LORD DAVID CECIL’S ENGAGEMENT

It is expected that Lord Cecil’s wedding to the daughter of Mr. Desmond McCarthy will attract a large gathering from aristocratic and literary circles. Lord David sprang into fame on the strength of the one book, “The Stricken Deer,” an intimate and sympathic study of the life of William Cowper. Lord David’s literary skill is not surprising, for several members of his family have been noted for their literary gifts. His grandfather, the late Lord Salisbury, was a contributor to the Saturday Review in its palmy days, and later his pungent wit found scope in his diplomatic dispatches and his speeches- His son, Lord Hugh Cecil and Lady Gwendolen Cecil, his daughter and biographer, have inherited much of their father’s gift, and Lord Hugh, in particular, would have taken a high place in literature had he devoted himself .to it instead of to politics.

HATS IN CHURCH.

“Is it comely that a woman prays unto God uncovered?” It is odd that St.' Paul’s query to the Corinthians should to-day have become a matter of newspaper controversy. At St. Mar-tin’s-in-the-Fields the officiating clergyman invited women members of the congregation to remove their hats if it would tend to their comfort in the heat wave. But if a woman goes into St. Paul’s Cathedral, even when no service is in progress she is politely asked to cover her head. And the same practice obtains in. many a remote country village, sometimes with results that would be ludicrous anywhere but in a place of worship. For, nowadays, we have many ramblers wandering about the countryside who like to take a peep into the village church. And sometimes there is difficulty in observing the old Biblical rule. Some friends of mine recently went ; into an ancient church in Sussex, half Norman, half Saxon in its architecture. Inside, they found two ladies and two gentlemen walking round under the guidance of an old sexton. In obedience to the old man’s request, the women, having no hats of their own, had- borrowed from their companions, one a straw “boater,” and the other a golf cap! ■

A TRAVELLING LIBRARY.

An enterprising firm of booksellers on the South. Coast have hit upon an idea the Women’s Institute Movement might well imitate. Wireless has done much to remove the reproach of dullness from village homes and country farms, but complaint is still made of the difficulty of getting good books when a “ village is far removed from a town of any importance. The scheme instituted in Sussex provides something in the nature of a travelling' lendiiig library. A car, .having its interiqr fitted up with bookshelves, tours the villages once a week and enables the country folk to make their own choice of any literature that appeals to them. The travelling library draws up in the village street, and the villagers come forth from their cottages armed with the book, or books, they had taken out the week before. These they exchange for something fresh. The fee charged is little more than nominal, and good books are thus brought within reach of humble shepherds and farm labourers.

GATHER YE ROSEBUDS.

One of London’s leading accountants put a conundrum to me yesterday, “Why • is it,” he asked, “that while nearly all other trades and professions are doing badly, the flower shops are enjoying a veritable boom? It is essentially a luxury trade, but everyone is buying flowers.” We discussed the problem in all its bearings. Afterwards I raised the same point with a florist. He was in no doubt at all about the explanation. “With many people nowadays,” he said, “flowers have become • a necessity, and are no longer a luxury. Moreover, they have a distinctly cheering influence. When you are depressed and tired,” he said, “there is nothing that bucks you up more than the sight of a bowl of flowers.”

THE WOOD SEASON.

Small Parisian boys, who hitherto have struggled with fretwork tools without much encouragement, have suddenly found themselves extremely popular. It came about through a designer hitting upon the idea of using exquisitely carved wooden buttons on one of his “creations,” and matching up the buttons with a necklace and a bracelet. Now all Paris has gone wood-button mad. And the small boys are having the time of their lives, with mothers and' sisters coaxing them for “trimmings” to say nothing of brand-new

fretwork outfits to encourage further efforts. The buttons, some large and some small, are fitted with shanks, then cleverly stained to match the frock they are to adorn, and sported triumphantly as le denier cri in smartness. Perhaps this autumn will go down in fashion’s annals as “the wood season.”

DELAYED HIGHLAND SEASON.

The fact that the King now very rarely goes to Balmoral until August is well advanced is having its influence on the Highland season. Although the grouse shooting nominally starts on the twelfth, London society nowadays rarely goes North until the sport has been in progress for at least ten days or a fortnight. This explains the number of sleepers which have been booked up on all the trunk lines during the last few nights. The crowd moving north has been almost as marked as it was on the nights of August 9 and August 10. ,it is hard to explain why this should be so, except that a great number of society people still closely follow the movements of royalty. The King, by the way, has taken some additional acreage outside the Balmoral estate for this year’s shooting—possibly because he is aware that there has been a bad slump in the Jetting of moors this autumn.