A MAID IN MAYFAIR

Taranaki Daily News, 25 May 1934, Page 15

A MAID IN MAYFAIR

GOSSIP FROM LONDON TOWN THEIR MAJESTIES IN SCOTLAND. PRESENTATION OF DEBUTANTES. (From Our Own Correspondent). London, March 8. I understand it is now settled, all being well, that the Court will be in residence at Holyrood for a week in July. There will be a drawing-room function held there by their Majesties, and this will presumably take the place of a fifth Court at Buckingham Palace. A number of intended debutantes will be presented in Scotland instead of in London! This will mean a short Scottish season, and will bring satisfaction to Scottish tradespeople, as well, as joy to the Scottish eligibles. On this occasion Mr. John Buchan, the famous literary] M.P., will act as Lord High Commissioner and their Majesties will be received at Edinburgh by the author of a notable panygyric on Cromwell. But Lord Rosebery, father of the present peer, performed a similar office, and he not only wrote a eulogistic life of the Lord Protector, but presented a fine statue of him to Imperial Parliament, probably just to annoy the Irish M.P.’s. Prettier and Prettier. Season after season our society debutantes seem to get better looking. In this country the standard has never been low, and even jealous foreign critics admit the beauty of our younger women. Curiously enough, in these days of slim fashion silhouettes, their one point of serious criticism, is that English girls have too thin legs.. In Italy we are colloquially termed Thin Legs. But my own observation is that the pest-War girl is . superbly healthy in figure and in looks, and that she also knows how to make the best of herself. It may be that explains in part the higher standard of beauty that the young society women are certainly setting. The coming royal Courts will be real beauty shows so far 'as thedebutantes are concerned. Russian Exiles. case now exciting interest in the courts has directed attention to the large number of Russian exiles ■ who have settled in London since the revolution. Many of them arrived almost penniless, but they have made a gallant fight of it, and with the help of their compatriots have generally contrived to “make good.” Some have entered the profession they belonged in their own country, and, as most of them spoke English before they fled from the Soviet terror, they found it easier to secure employment than would otherwise have been the case. But some have had to be content with very modest jobs. One man, who stood high in the Court at Petrograd, is still acting as a waiter at a London restaurant. In another instance, a charming old lady opened a Russian cafe in the near vicinity of Piccadilly-circus. All the leading Russian refugees gave her their patronage, and it was pretty to se'e the men bowing and kissing her hand when they left the restaurant after paying their bills. In her time she was principal lady-in-waiting to the late Czarina. An Invidious Task. It used to be a standing joke when he had to decide who should, and who should not enter the Royal Enclosure at Ascot, that Viscount Churchill had more enemies than any other man in London society. The task is certainly a very invidious one, but I am told that the Earl of Granard is entering upon it with light-hearted thoroughness. He has always been extremely popular in society, and though he will doubtlessly make- enemies in his new task no one will ever be able to question his impartiality. Both Lord and Lady Granard belong to what is known as the Royal Set. Lady Granard lent her house in Paris to the Princess Royal and the Earl of Harewood for part of their honeymoon. She races a great deal in France in partnership with Lord Derby, and is known as one of our very best women bridge players. Under the Hammer. The antiques and other treasures accumulated by tire late Sir Augustus Fitz George, third son of the late Duke of Cambridge, are to come under the hammer shortly, and Queen Mary intends, it would seem, to be a bidder at the sale. She was first cousin to Sir Augustus, and many of the objects of art possess for her a sentimental as well as historical interest. Sir Augustus spent a good many years of his life in Canada and India, and not all of the curios he picked up in different parts of the world are of great intrinsic value. But his house in Queen-street was literally crowded with souvenirs of one sort or another, and Queen Mary has paid more, than one visit to the house recently to make an examination of the articles, and decide which she shall purchase when the sale takes place. Many of them will doubtlessly find a home ultimately at Buckingham Palace or Windsor Castle. Others, with equal certainty will find their way to the United States. C.O.D. Not long ago a well-known doctor made himself slightly unpopular with feminists by asserting that the modern girl, and especially the modem Cockney housewife, was either too ignorant or too lazy to cook a proper meal. Perhaps the huge fortunes made out of patent foods, which need no cooking and can be poured or shaken out, lend some support to this indictment. In how many suburban or proletarian homes nowadays, I wonder, is porridge made in the good old-fashioned way? But a still more damning piece of evidence in favour of the medical critic is the latest service advertised by enterprising London caterers. This consists of nothing more or less than a motor delivery of three-or-four course dinners. The vans are fitted with magnificent electric stoves, . and the full equipment of a luxury kitchen. Presiding over this installation is a lady cook in punctilious regalia, complete with diplomas. These travelling kitchens cater almost exclusively for the idle middle-class housewife.

Getting Over It. In common with others whose work includes the sometimes wearisome business of literary criticism, I have noted recently a decided ebb in the flow of sex novels. We have had a perfect orgy of such literary products, and the women writers, though none has quite reached the sordid depths of two famous writers, have been well in the van of the movement. Even schoolgirls have achieved a brief dubious celebrity by dipping their adolescent pens in frank pornography. But apparently the “sexappeal” novel is at last falling out of favour, and we can say, with the sentry in Hamlet, “for this relief much thanks.” After the war, perhaps as a natural reaction to much of the conduct during it, incredibly “outspoken" treatment of sex topics became a sort of literary fetish. Perhaps we shall now get back to a more pleasing style of literary entertainment. Even the films seem to be tiring of lingerie displays and bedroom scenes. Halo of Wood. I hear that there is to be a revival of a long-dead handicraft—that of making wood ornaments for hair and dress. Valuable woods will be used in their natural cloours, polished to a high degree, and set with gold, silver and precious stones. Not only halo diadems, but also “Alice” bands, combs, and small slides will, it is said, be made of wood. I suppose quite 80 per cent, of the women who dine and dance at London clubs wear the halo head-dress in some form. Some draw it low on the brow, which is wrong. Others pose it across the head, which is an improvement. The small minority wear it as, I am told, it should be worn—standing up across the back of the crown. Recently. I saw the new halo of polished wood inlaid with gold and thought it looked better than any of the more elaborate jewelled affairs. Diplomacy. A great ado is being made at the moment about truculent pedlars in the London suburbs. These peripatetic merchants are'said to be a serious nuisance, constantly troubling housewives, and refusing to take “no" for tan answer. One man, alleged to have frightened ta woman to her death by putting his foot inside the door, has been sent to. gaol. I believe this admitted nuisance is no worse than it ever was, and I fancy it can be easily dealt with, by police alertness and a little domestic tact. I know one good woman, in comparatively poor circumstances, and dwelling in just the sort of suburb the hawkers haunt, who disposes of them most affably. When a man calls and makes himself a nuisance, this dame who is a “lady char," with evening work at the Temple, simply says: “My dear fellow, I have not got a bean. But, if you care to interview the broker’s man, who is ‘in,’ step inside!” That, I am assured, never fails to . work. Exit the Stepgirl. It seems that. the pre-war stepgirl is doomed to the same fate as the Dodo and the maid-of-all-work.. . Probably this denouement became inevitable when the post-war edition of the old-time stepgirl took to silk stockings. The latter do not harmonise with the menial job of scrubbing doorsteps.. But the handy unemployed ex-serviceman. is stepping gallantly into the breach, just as he is trying to do in the case of the domestic help. And now we are to have a duly registered company of doorstep cleaners and brass-plate polishers. It is rather strange that the window-cleaning firms have never thought of this, and of combining doorsteps and door-plates with their window-rubbing activities. We are within hail of the era when most of the domestic chores. formerly regarded as essentially feminine work will be performed by subdued cavemen. Beauty and the Bays. It has-been very noticeable at recent mannequin parades held by the leading West End fashion salons, that the sudden popularity of the head band is just as abruptly petering out; A few weeks ago these head adornments were almost universal. Only one or two show mannequins now affect the. style. Those still worn, moreover, are of a neater character. Fashion in this particular is moving away from the barbaric towards the sophisticated. Coral and sapphire tiaras find more favour than those of dull gold and rubies. A charming conceit that caught my eye, and that may well initiate another head-dress vogue, was a silver cloth of laurel leaves worn by a tall and stately damsel. This is frankly in the style of Julius Caesar and Old Rome. On the right head it is most becoming; so we may have modem ultra-fashionables laurelled like classic poets, and assuming at all events the outward dignity of Roman matrons. Fashion Church Parade. “While there is probably a good deal of American journalistic exaggeration, in the description of the ‘Easter Fashion Parade’ of women proceeding to church on Easter morning in New York, the depression event is hailed as a sign of better times by the American newspapers, it prompts the reflection that we in New Zealand are at present remarkably free from that bane of religion, ostentation in women’s dress in the average church,” says the Church News. Our New Zealand women certainly, and properly, love beautiful garments and a new frock is a spring tonic more rejuyenative than any in the pharmacopoeia; but such display is mostly to be observed nowadays on the racecourse, at garden parties or at evening festivities. Once upon a time it was one of the ‘scandals’ of the church that richer women would come to God s House in the latest confections of purple and fine linen; to-day, though they are by no means ‘dowdy,’ and there is a far higher general ‘standard of dress,’ despite depression, it does appear to be appreciated in New Zealand that the church is not the place for a lavish display of dress. But perhaps Dives’ wife doesn’t now go to church so often in New Zealand.”