A MAID IN MAYFAIR

Taranaki Daily News, 18 October 1934, Page 14

A MAID IN MAYFAIR

LONDON TOWN GOSSIP ROYAL JEWELS DISPLAYED. FAMOUS KOH-I-NOOR DIAMOND. (Special Correspondent). Aug. 3, 1934. It was noticed that the Queen at the afternoon drawing room at Holyroodhouse was wearing amongst other jewels the famous Koh-i-noor diamond. It is not often that the State jewellery goes so far afield from the Tower of London. There is little opportunity, however, of bandits stealing them on the journey, for, from the moment they leave Buckingham Palace, they are most carefully guarded. The jewellery is placed in the charge of specially appointed couriers who travel armed in case there should be any attempt to intercept them. Once in the train the doors of the compartment are safely locked and admission is forbidden to any unauthorised person. It is estimated that the intrinsic value of the jewellery taken to Scotland would be over £lOO,OOO but its sentimental value can hardly be gauged. Later Weddings. London society during the season has showr® little disposition to take advantage of the later hours at‘which weddings

may now be solemnised in the churches. Almost invariably they have taken place round about the luncheon hour, so that the “happy couple” may partake of the wedding breakfast afterwards and get away to the Continent while the day is still young. By way of contrast the hour is almost invariably set back in the case of country weddings. These “Village” weddings as they are called are growing increasingly popular because they do not entail anything like the same heavy expense as a wedding at St. Margaret’s or at one of the other fashionable wedding churches. As a general rule the wedding ceremony is followed by a garden party which goes on well into the afternoon or early evening. A garden party starting at one or two in the afternoon would seem all wrong. So the wedding hour is put back. Harbingers. Doubtless owing to the heat wave, there is already a tendency on the part of society people to shake the dust of the Metropolis from their feet, and to anticipate the normal Scottish season on the moors. Susan Duchess of Somerset left London on Wednesday for Red Castle, Ross-shire; and here during the remainder of the summer and early autumn she will be entertaining house parties, until the guns gather there in August. The duchess likes having young people about her. Then Julia Marchioness of Tweeddale is already in residence at Braham Castle, Ross-shire; while Lady Strathcona and her children have arrived at Colonsay House in the Inner Hebrides, to be joined there by Lord Strathcona when Parliament rises. These, and others like them, are the harbingers of the denser flight north which will gather force as “the twelfth” approaches. Eton and Harrow. Mothers and sisters of Eton and Harrow boys allowed neither rain nor threats of rain to make any difference to their dress display at Lord’s. They wore their garden-party frocks and picture hats as though there were blue skies and bright sunshine, walking across the lawns and from stand to stand in the correct Eton and Harrow manner while the rain kept off, and dashing for shelter with flounces caught up in a bunch when the showers fell. There were nearly as many grey top hats as one sees at Ascot, and fathers displayed their light or dark blue buttonholes with obvious pride. The smallest boys had the smartest waistcoats—some really lovely pieces of brocade had been utilised for some of them—end every ebony cane that was carried boasted its large blue silken tassel. Mothers wore blue feather capes and boas; sisters had blue frocks in the correct shades. The old familiar faces were seen in the throng. The Duke of Devonshire had his usual family party in his box. Lord Salisbury was host to children and grandchildren on a coach and Mr. and Mrs. Stanley Baldwin sat In their accustomed places in the front row of the grand stand. Art at House. Londonderry House, which itself holds to many art treasures, is to be utilised temporarily for the purpose of an art i exhibition of more than ordinary in-1 terest. This interest derives from the i

fact that Lady Margaet Stewart is herself one of the exhibitors, the other two being the Hon. Antony Chaplin, Lord Londonderry’s nephew, and Sir Herbert Maxwell. The exhibits of Lady Margaret include flower studies and landscapes. The flower-pieces give evidence of a careful study of tonal variations and the play of light; while the landscapes, even if they display too great an insistence on sombre effects, will nevertheless commend themselves to all who know the characteristics of the countryside at Mountstewart, where the artist obtained the inspiration for her canvases. The water-colours of birds by Mr. Chaplin and the flowers by Sir Herbert Maxwell are of the careful, somewhat emphatic type to be found in colours in standard works on ornithology and horticulture, though Mr. Chaplin has managed to invest his bird studies with considerable individuality. He has adopted with great success the Japanese decorative manner. Froth Blower’s Daughter. Miss Bunty Fripp, who is marrying vhe Earl of Roden’s nephew, Mr. H. C. Parr, will certainly make a most charming bride. She is one of those bouncing athletic daughters of Sir Alfred Fripp, the famous surgeon to King Edward, wb-o swim like ducks, and provide the star turns at Bath Club festivals. They owe their swimming prowess to a childhood largely spent in Lulworth Cove. As her nickname of “Bunty” suggests, the bride-to-be is a most popular young lady. Her father was the founder of the Honourable Order of Froth Blowers, and incidentally the surgeon who operated on Charlie Hands, the war correspondent, when he collected a Boer bullet in the thigh at the relief of Mafeking. At that time the papers were making much ado about a “hospital scandal” in South Africa, but Charlie Hands described how the then Mr. Fripp operated on him, and remarked that what was good enough for the Prince of Wales was good enough for him. Clever Lady. It is astonishing how clever women, with some special gift, manage to turn the latter to good account. A typical example is Miss Anne Holland, who is setting up in. Chelsea, of all places, as an interior decorator. This clever artist discovered that lots of people were glad to commission her, while they were away on holiday, to redecorate and even re-furnish their town homes. It must, in fact, be an agreeable denouement to a summer holiday to get back home, and find it a completely fresh abode, with all sorts of new decorative ideas carefully and artistically carried out. ’ This is a whim for the wealthy, but other folks, less well off, are glad enough for a small fee to have the get up of their homes and fla,ts thought out for them by an expert in the art. Miss Holland finds that even staid old bachelors, and spinster business women, too, sometimes are keen on calling in an artist to brighten up the decorative scheme of their domestic mise-en-scene.

Schoolgirl’s Ballet It is no small feat for a girl of just 17 to write, produce,., and dress a ballet. This is the achievement of Miss Pamela Ripman, the youthful daughter of Professor Ripman, of the London University. Pamela Ripman, who has only recently left St. Paul’s School to go to a dramatic school, lives with her family in Kensington. She wrote her ballet, “The Dream,’” when she was 15, after she had dreamed the story seven times running. Now she is producing it at the Rudolph Steiner Hall. A friend who works in a bank, a young composer of 25, has set it to music, and among the cast are Miss Jill Furse, a niece of Sir Henry Newbolt, and Miss P, Farren, a descendant of Nellie Farren. “The Dream,” which is in the modern style, tells in ballet and mime the story of a boy genius and a poet who reach the edge of the world. Pam Barton.

By her exploit in winning the women’s golf championship, Miss Pam Barton has justified the high opinion formed of her play when she was run-ner-up to Mrs. Holm in the open championship at Porthcawl. Though still only 17, Miss Barton goes from strength to strength, and already people are speaking of her as the Joyce Wethered of the future. Happily, she has not had her head turned by her success. I only met her once, but found her delightfully simple and natural in manner. In one particular the important compettition which she has won at Le Touquet was as much English as French, for the French players were outnumbered by foreign competitors to the extent of three to one! Golf will never attain such a hold in France as it has in Eng-

land until the expenses of the game are brought down. The annual club subscriptions sometimes even amount to £25, while week-end green fees are correspondingly prohibitive. Modem Manners. : A friend, who makes a hobby of hospitality, complains bitterly about the manners of the modern generation, especially the female part of it. Misses still in their “teens” think nothing of being 20 minutes or half-an-hour late for a luncheon or a dinner, party, and, as for the less formal occasions, they either accept invitations without coming or come without accepting, and in neither event do they offer an opology. My informant tells me that, when he gives a party one of his servants is assigned the sole duty of preventing carpets and furniture being damaged by cigarette-ends, which are thrown down without regard to the possible results. In this respect again my friend, who is no misogynist, declares that women are the worst offenders.

Cupid’s Violet Rays. I sat next to a charming platinum blonde to-day at a West End function. After taking a careful second look, I realised that the lady’s eyelashes were of a delicate violet shade. She was a woman of fashion with adventurous ambitions, and a rich husband. Violet eyelashes, which add depth and aesthetic subtlety to Dan Cupid’s rapid fire, are yet another chic notion from Paris. But it would surprise me less to encounter even emerald-green or vivid magenta eyelashes in Paris than to come across even soberly dyed ones in grey old London. In the ’ matter of super-chic fashions, London ladies are not such whole-hoggers, so to speak, as their neighbours arcoss the channel. To those who like make-up for its own sake, and prefer ladies as artificial as possible, a pretty blonde with violet lashes does not look at all bad. But what about eyebrows en suite? Nothing Doing.

It is easy to see, any day in New Bond Street, some really bizarre dresses worn by smart women. But these are mild Indeed compared with some of the sensational ones that never find a puchaser. So we may deduce that the wearing of the ultra-fashionable does not quite) come up to the optimistic expectations of the dress, designers. Every now and then the latter overstep the mark, and their goods fail to find any market even in the most exotic quarters. I saw a number of these fashion “rejects” sold off a few days ago, and could not h ’ admiring the courage that ever imagined they might be worn. One arresting example was a German product, in which the designer had allowed his Hitler complex to run away with his fashion discretion to the extent of weaving large Nazi swastikas. Against that abortion might be set a British design of lions, with red roses in their mouths. A regular “roarer!” Bread and Wine. At a recent dinner-party somebody asked why, since everybody so much prefers them, big firms do not make “home-made” bread and jam. The answer given by experts was that it was impossible to keep the home-made touch with machine-made material. It must needs be hand-made, and that meant it would be hopelessly uneconomical on- any large scale. By the same authorities we were told that, in the North of England, ‘most women still bake their own bread. There is not one in a hundred thousand in the South who can or does. Cockney housewives are the least capable of all, and the Cockney household is the great prop of tinned goods. This may explain the Londoner’s C 3 symptoms as compared with country folk. Home-made wine, however, is still a domestic industry in the South. At this same dinner-table, I heard of country aunts who make a rhubarb wine that is like pink champagne, and also a cucumber wine warranted to subdu® oven hard-headed . cavemen