A MAID IN MAYFAIR

Taranaki Daily News, 24 November 1934, Page 19 (Supplement)

A MAID IN MAYFAIR

LONDON TOWN GOSSIP BUCKINGHAM PALACE OVERHAUL. (Special Correspondent). London, Sept. 20. One has only to observe the activities on the part of workmen at Buckingham Palace to appreciate that next year will be a busy one for the King and Queen. During the time their Majesties have been in Scotland, the State visitors’ rooms on the first floor have been thoroughly overhauled and redecprated, and now oj erations on the exterior of this section of the Palace have been commenced. It is several years since the Stone work was last cleaned down, and as the grime of London’s smoky atmosphere is no respecter of royalty, Buckingham Palace has not. escaped its damaging effects. Attention is being paid to the massive fluted pillars and the balcony over the centre gateway leading to the quadrangle from the courtyard, which is opened only on State occasions.

Royal Grand Stand. I understand that certain defects in the stone work have been discovered, and these will be treated at the same time. The balcony is to receive special attention, for it is here the King and Queen view those demonstrations of loyalty and affection which mark ceremonial drives and other occasions. They will be seen here many times next year. State visitors also find this a particularly interesting place for seeing London’s life, for they obtain from here a view along the whole length of the Mall to Admiralty Arch, as well as St. James’s Park. The work will take some time, but it will not be interrupted during the week or ten days that the King and Queen will be in town shortly. Only the private apartments of their Majesties are opened during this short spell of residence at the Palace.

Duke of Connaught The Duke of Connaught intends to repeat his visit to the West Country for a portion of the Winter months. He has stayed at Sidmouth for the past three years, and will be there again early in November until the early days of February. The Duke’s decision again to spend a portion of his winter in Devonshire is a tribute to the genial climate in this part of the country, and justifies its title of “Riviera of England. ’ His first visit was made for exemplary reasons. He felt that, when economic position of the country demanded as little of English money as possible being spent out of fhe country, his obvious duty was to conform to the spirit of the time. In the circumstances H.R.H. sought an English resort for a portion of the winter. It was to be experimental, but it proved so successful from the health point of view that the Duke has continued to visit Devonshire each year since. His equerry, Major Berkeley Levett, who invariably accompanies him abroad, lives at Sidmouth. It was he who suggested Sidmouth to the Duke’s medical advisor.

A Family Welcome. It is easy to predict that Princess Marina Will find nothing embarrassing about her introduction to the King and Queen and the members of the royal household as the fiancee of Prince George. This week, indeed, is likely to be for her one of the happiest of her betrothal, for she will be received into at atmosphere shorn of all pomp and ceremony which, of necessity, surrounds the royal family in London, and will get to know her future “in laws” under the happiest of circumstance? Both the King and the Queen are already very fond of her. She has been received and entertained by them a good deal at different times, and ever since her coming-out, and her first appearance in social London, Princess Marina has been a favourite of the Queen. Her Majesty admires her charm of manner, the clever way in which she dresses, and, more than all, her interest in domestic matters.

Gay Little Season. The marriage of Prince George and Princess Marina will mean a very gay pre-Christmas Little Season in London. The programme was fairly full before there was any hint of a royal engagement and marriage, but now there will be added to the coming-out dances, the charity balls, bridge tournaments, and so on, all the festivities associated with a royal Wedding. Apart altogether from the formal celebrations, Prince George is a very popular young man in Mayfair and a great many hostesses, who have been in the habit of entertaming him, are, now back in London making plans for parties in honour of the bride and bridegroom-to-be. Some weeks are likely to elapse before the marriage takes place, and, as Princess Marina will be in England during most of the time, there will be plenty of opportunities for these private celebrations.

First Wedding Presents. Princess Marina has already received her first wedding presents. They are from friends in Yugoslavia who are specially privileged, and know her desires in this matter intimately. The gifts are a writing-desk and a tableservice. The Princess is a very prac-tical-minded person, and has let it bd known that her wishes will be best served if gifts to her are of a really useful kind. Prince George shares her views, and, as he has to set up a new home entirely, it should not be a difficult matter for his friends, wishing to give an expression of their goodwill, to settle the nature of their proposed gifts to mark the auspicious occasion. 1 understand that some of his former naval associates are already putting their heads together for some useful idea. The Prince left many close friends behind him when he quitted the Service. Victorian Posies. Then end of the season saw the revival of the old-fashioned flower posy nestling in a silver-paper lace frill, and tied tip with narrow ribbon. Girls carried the posies in ballrooms, artistic women set them in tall old custard-glasses in their boudoirs, and the florists had quite a busy time making up bouquets in given colour schemes to tone with dresses. Now the vogue has spread, and the Victorian posy is regarded as the gift par excellence for an elderly lady on her birthday. The pretty sentiment is that she has “memories” which the little bouquet .will revive, and will cherish the present till the last flower fades. A good many amateur gardeners are taking up the idea, too, for the posies can be made all the year round, berries and everlasting flowers taking the place of summer blossom later on. One of these amateurs tells me that she makes quite a nice little bit of “pinmoney” with her hobby. Evangeline Booth,

Commander Evangeline Booth, who is tn London in connection with the forthcoming election of the next leader of the Salvation Army, is one of those women who seem to have discovered the elixir of perpetual youth. Extraordinarily like her father, the founder of the Army, in feature, she is almost equally feu and WSfet fe

sesses an abundance of wavy hair which barely shows a trace of greyness. She looks as if she were in her thirties, and one would hardly believe it if she told one she was fifty, yet in actual fact her next birthday will be her seventieth. She attributes this youthfulness and health to her constant activity in the work of the Salvation Army in America, where, by the way, she views her duties as of such importance to make her have few desires of being elected as successor to General Higgins.

Express Steno-Typists. The L.N.E.R. is to be congratulated upon the success which has attended upon its enterprise in providing a travelling staff of typist-stenographers for the convenience of business-men passengers between King’s Cross and Newcastle. So far the innovation has been made tentatively, ar.Y no more than four extremely competent girls are employed in this capacity. Those four, however, are kept so constantly busy during the whole run of the expresses, both north and south-bound that there is likelihood of the service being widely extended in the future. The girls report that they are not only engaged for the taking down of commercial letters but that also passengers of the professional type, particularly clergymen and politicians, are finding their services offer them a valuable saving of time in the matter of correspondence.

Little Islands’ Great Queen. London is accustomed to being visited by the rulers and potentates of all sorts of out-of -the-way portions of the globe. But we have seldom been given the opportunity of welcoming a monarch of such greatness as that of Queen Salote, who has intimated her intention of coming over to see for herself the wonders of our Western civilisation. Salote is Queen of the Friendly Islands, which are under the protection of Great Britain, and her greatness is rather physical than territorial. The Tongans, her people, like their monarch to be of impressive appearance, and in Queen. Salote they have a ruler who is justly worthy of the esteem in which they hold her. She is, as Tessa pictures herself In the Gondoliers, “a regular, rightdown, royal Queen,” but, in the phraseology of another classic comic opera she might well be addressed as “oh, most mountainous Madame!” for she is six feet three inches in statue and turns the scale at eighteen stones, whilst in British footwear her size is 13. No wonder the people of Tonga hold her in awe!

For Children Only. It will be interesting to see what success attends the experiment of organising an ocean cruise for “children only.” The idea is, of course, to let parents get away on holiday on their own without the responsibility of looking after their young people. There will be hosts and hostesses, games-masters and gamesmistresses as well as doctors on board to see that the children are well looked after and have a thoroughly enjoyable time. The enterprise of the shipping line concerned is certainly deserving of success. Very few people nowadays can afford to give their boys the grand tour of the world that used to be regarded as a sort of crown to educational studies. But even a short trip to Madeira, embracing visits to Lisbon and some of the Mediterranean ports, tends, in some degree, to broaden a child’s mind.

Riviera Rivalry. Rather confllicting reports come to hand about the success of the Riviera summer season. The French resorts are suffering to some extent from the high rate of exchange. This applies not only to the hotels, but also to the little white villas dotted amongst the palms all along the Mediterranean seaboard. Many of these villas are not rented, but were purchased outright during the post-war period by English Society folk. Though they take their own servants with them, they still complain that the cost of living is prohibitive. Many of the shops seem to have a special tariff for the unfortunate English visitors. As a result many holidaymakers cross over to the Italian side, where the exchange is not so seriously against them. Ocean cruises, too, are attracting a good many people who ordinarily went to the South of Europe.

Cryptics. A friend of mine has taken up a novel occupation which brings her in a nice little sum in the way of pin money. She discovered that she had a flair for making cryptic crosswords. The work occupies a good deal of her time, but she says it is quite fascinating. The making of a crossword, she declares, is quite as intriguing in its way as the business of solving one. But there is always a fly In the amber. She confesses that wherever she goes, whether by bus, by train, or on foot, she is always looking out for words which are capable of cryptic clues or words, alternatively, that can be readily turned into an anagram. Her main difficulty was to find a market for her “wares.” Once that was solved everything else was relatively easy.

Strange but True. A West End jeweller assured me today that the recently announced betrothal has given a perceptible stimulus to matrimonial engagements generally. At first I thought the shop-keeper was trying to perform what is vulgarly called a leg-pulling operation at my expense. But he gravely declared that, since the engagement of Prince George and Princess Marina, the sale of engagement rings had shown an appreciable boom. He went further than this, and ventured the prediction that the boom will grow still more pronounced now it is known what kind of engagement ring the royal lover has given his beautiful Princess. So it seems there are still many people, and young postWar people at that, who flatter royalty even to the length of following their example in embarking on matrimony. It is truly a strange fact, but the evidence seems fairly conclusive. If the Prince of Wales became engaged, I presume engagement rings would reach a premium. Lady Aboard America Cup Yacht. Mrs. Sopwith, wife of the owner and steersman of Endeavour, is acting as time-keeper and observer during the races. Time-keeping is an onerous duty, especially just before the start, for mistakes may place the yacht at a serious disadvantage. And observing changes (n wind and weather and reporting the tactics of the opposing craft call for very close attention, since much depends on them! But there is no reason why a woman should not make a first-class time-keeper and observer flboard a racing yacht. Some make very good steersmen. In fact Lady Burton, the first woman to sail aboard an American Cup yacht during the actual races, performed these very duties in Shamrock IV, the challenger in 1920, which was steered by her husband, Sir William Burton, to-day one * f the most successful amateur yachtsmen in this country as well as one of the keenest. The present conditions are somewhat similar. Sir William had been steering his own yachts since the early ’nineties, and Lady Burton had been with him in su many of his races that she knew all his ways. And so, in 1920, when it was considered that Sir William was the best man in the country to steer Sir Thomas Lipton's Shamrock IV, Lady Burton also sailed aboard in the afterguard” as her husband’s observer and ■