A MAID IN MAYFAIR

Taranaki Daily News, 29 December 1934, Page 15 (Supplement)

A MAID IN MAYFAIR

THEIR MAJESTIES ENJOY OPEN-AIR. (Special Correspondent). Oct. 18, 1934. The King and Queen are delighting in warm sunshine and bright days at Sandringham. After their Highland holiday, which was very disappointing this year in the matter of weather, so much of the time being wet, they are especially appreciative of the “Indian summer,” and are spending as many hours as possible out of doors. Sandringham has always been noted for its lovely gardens and especially for its autumn show of Michaelmas daisies, and this year the misty mauve flowers are indeed a picturesque sight There are still roses, too, bordering some of the walks, and tiny blossoms blooming bravely in the Queen’s rock garden. This rock garden was established a few years ago, and has now been brought almost to perfection. So many of the plants have been presented to her Majesty at different times that the garden has more than a floral interest for its royal owner.

Royal Cook. The Scandinavian Princesses who have married during the laSt few years have all been held up as patterns to the rest of the world because they could cook, care for a baby, and run a house on economical lines. Now we hear that Princess Marina is an accomplished cook, and that she is busy, between buying her trousseau and deciding upon her wedding gown, compiling a cook-book to be used in her household after her marriage to Prince George. The book will contain recipes used in her home country, and a number of the duties for which Prince George expressed a liking while he was staying with the Princess’s relatives immediately after betrothal. It is quite likely some of these dishes will be introduced into Mayfair menus during the autumn and winter. A good deal of entertaining is being planned in honour of the young Royal couple—both before and after their wedding—and hostesses will vie with each other in arranging menus containing Princess Marina’s favourite souffles and sweets.

Yugoslavian Boy King. The young King Peter of Yugoslavia has some very Interesting associations with this country of which very UttJe has been heard. One of his first nurses was an. English girl, trained at a wellknown nursery college in the North, and while she was on a visit to England with him in 1924 his first birthday arrived, and was spent at the nursery college. The present-giving order of things was reversed for the royal baby, however, for at his birthday tea-party—-when there was an iced cake with one tiny candle burning in the centre of it —he presented little gifts to each of the dozen or so children resident at the college. They were simple little presents, but most of them have been kept and treasured, and the parents of the recipients, if not the recipients themselves, have felt their hearth go put this week to the enchanting baby of 1924 who is now the sad little King Peter. Presentations.

All the members of the Royal Family have Interesting—if quit© useless—collections of golden and silver keys and handsome silver, trowels, presented to them at stone-laying and opening ceremonies. The Princess Royal has fewer than any, for, after her marriage, sn® unwittingly remarked one day that a key or a trowel seemed to involve such useless expenditure. ' If it /was felt, she' said, that a gift must be made, it wn? a pity that the money should not be spent 'upon something useful, or decorative. The remark was not intended to ba passed on, or to be published, but her wishes in the matter soon became known, especially in Yorkshire her home county, where she undertakes so many public functions, and she is rarely, if ever, asked now to accept key or trowel. Some small personal gift is substituted, and a day or two ago her collection of old silver was added to after a function at York, a beautiful snuff box taking the place of th® traditional key.

Silver Bride. Princess Marina has been guided by the advice of the Queen in the choice of her wedding gown. 'lnstead of the heavy white crepe with a dull surface which the Duke of Kent’s bride-to-be had in mind originally, an exquisite silver brocade woven with roses has been selected, and it is generally agreed that the material is Vieal for a stately ceremony In Westminister Abbey. The Queen has had so much experience ,of observing how materials look in varied settings and varying lights that her advice in the matter was of the utmost value. While Princess Marina and her mother, Princess Nicolas of Greece, were at Balmoral the whole subject was gom> into, and the Queen explained, in het kindly way, that a material with “life” in .the surface was absolutely necessary for a dignified ceremony in such lighting at the Abbey gives. The Queen was prepared to offer some of her magnificent lace for the bridal veil and train, but the royal bride is wearing an old lace veil which belongs to her mother’s family.

New Royal Hostess. In social circles and in women’s clubs it is being prophesied that this time next year Princess Marina will be one of the leading hostesses in London Society. Unlike the Princess Royal and the Duchess of York, she will, as the wife of n younger son of the King and Queen, have a good deal more freedom than her sister-in-law, and will be at liberty to form, with her husband, a "set” or circle of her own. Princess Marina is fond of entertaining, and of what, m old-fashioned days, would have been called “company,” and the new Duke of Kent has already a very long list of friends and acquaintances. So there is every reason to believe that the youn? couple will dispense a good deal of hospitality when they settle down after their honeymoon. Princess Marina has been described as a born hostess, and there is no doubt that her early training will stand her in good stead when she is called upon to receive and to entertain on her own account.

Back from the Country. The Duchess of Northumberland is among the hostesses who have returned to town houses this week. With her have come her two daughters, Lady Elizabeth Percy, one of the outstanding debutantes of the year, and Lady Diana, who is to come out next year. Lady Diana will probably go about with her sister a little during the next few weeks, in readiness for her debut, and, if she is as popular as Lady Elizabeth became during the London Season, the Duchess will find herself overwhelmed with invitations for both girls. Lady Linlithgow another popular hostess, .’S also back in London, ready to entertain for her daughters, Lady Anne and Lady Joan Hope, and Lady Titchfield is expected shortly with Lady Anne Caven-dish-Bentinck. Lady Derby will do a little quiet entertaining for Miss Ruth Primrose, and other well-known debutantes are having small chances given for them between now and Christmas.

The Queen’s Thoughtfulness. The Queen never forgets to send, each autumn, to the inmates of the Royal Hospital and Home for Incurables at Putney a large-sized parcel of pieces of silk, velvet, brocade, and satin which she has . collected and put aside during the year. Those inmates of the institution who are able to use their hands fashion these scraps of material—the texture and colours of which are a great delight to them—into little fancy articles for a sale of work, and quite a large sum is made each year as a result of their purchase by friends of the Home. To have such a parcel despatched may seem a very small thing, but those who have seen the pleasure which its unpacking means to the pathetic patients, and their joy when a selection of pieces is handed over to them, to be made up, never forget what this act of thoughtfulness on the part of the royal donor means in lives so lacking in brightness and happiness. Origin of “Marina.”

A Grecian friend of Princess Marina has been telling London acquaintances how Prince George’s fiancee cam® by her attractive, but somewhat unusual name. She was born in 1906, the year in which a visit was paid to Greece by King Edward and Queen Alexandra. As this visit, which practically coincided with her christening, was made by seadown the Mediterranean in the black and gold Royal yacht, Victoria and Albert—her parents, Prince and Princess Nicolas of Greece, decided to call her Marina to celebrate their meeting on the sea with King Edward, and to commemorate the fact that he was the monarch of the supreme sea-faring, nation of the world. The Princess is said to be delighted that her husband was for a time a sailor. In the Little Season.

The Princess Royal intends, to divide her time between London and the country during the “little season,” instead of remaining in Yorkshire all the time, as she has done in past years. She has made quite a number of engagements in Town for next month and for December. Several of these are in connection with charity performances, which suggests that sh© may be arranging to relieve the Queen of attendance at some of the autumn matinees. Her Majesty enjoys these afternoon performances immensely, but in the last year? or two there has been a tendency to ask for her presence at scores of them during the seasoij, and it is a little difficult for, her to refuse, where the charity to be benefited is one in which she is specially interested. With both the Princess Royal and the Duchess of York giving their assistance, the Queen’s leisure should not be quite so fully occupied. Windfalls.

"An apple a day keeps the doctor away” is a slogan most women believe in. Just at present, however, a great number of London housewives are more concerned in deciding just how many apples, and other fruits may be eaten per day without involving risk of calling in the doctor. The autumn of 1934 is likely to become memorable as the backyard harvest. Even close into town trees that for years have never yielded fruit are laden down almost to breaking point, and suburban families are struggling valiantly to consume the bounties of nature before they rot upon their hands. This plenitude of fruit has given rise to a new form of mendicancy in the suburbs. The request “Please have you any windfalls?” is made so repeatedly by urchins between school hours as to become a minor nuisance.

Irish Bridal Linen. Little Season weddings are beginning to take place, and trousseau teas are among the social engagements of the day. It is interesting to find the modern bride as interested in her house linen as she is in her lingerie. When the piles of pretty clothes have been duly inspected and admired, the bride-to-be-produces with great pride the house and table linen given to her by her mother or her grandmother, and, if she be asked to choose additional gifts, asks immediately that her stock of linen may be added to. There is a tremendous vogue for Irish linen of the finest texture for these bridal occasions. The periodic shows of table napery from Ireland, sponsored by Lady Londonderry, Priscilla Lady Annesley and other hostesses of repute, have done a great deal to make the beauty of the clothes and sheets woven on Irish looms well known, and as Ireland produces exquisitelypatterned linen as well as that of fine weave, her products are usually chosen in preference to any others. Floral Feast.

Since only the wealthiest of Mayfair hostesses now leave the arrangement of flowers in their rooms to other people, the exhibition at Westminster the other day of floral art was attended by any number of beautifully-dressed women, searching for novel ideas of table and ball-room decoration. They must have found sufficient inspiration to last them through the entire winter season. The whole of the Horticultural Hall was taken up with tables and stands decorated with the loveliest blooms by florists competing for the Royal Horticultural Society’s diploma for British floral art. Roses and carnations, the outstanding decorative blooms in England, were used in the majority of the schemes, and the colour and the scent of them sent guests into ecstasies of delight. Notes were being taken of the way to fill vases, the arrangement of blooms in bowls and the grouping and massing, of flowers, and the result of the exhibition should be some beautiful floral schemes at “little season” social functions.