STRANGE SIGHTS IN LONDON

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLII, Issue 20610, 26 December 1936, Page 3

STRANGE SIGHTS IN LONDON

* SULTAN GOES HOME AROMA OF CURRIED CHICKEN LONDON, December 5. Chauffeurs and taxicab drivers waiting idly in the courtyard of one of London’s luxury hotels suddenly sat up astonished. They saw a procession of servants carrying fifteen steaming pots emerge from the hotel. An aroma of curried chicken filled the courtyard. The pots were presently placed in a van, which drove off with one of the servants as escort. Onlookers to this strange scene did not know that a Sultan and his court were about to leave for the Far East, taking with them ready-cooked food for the early stages of the journey. It was in this fashion that the seventy-five-year-old Sultan of Selangor, recipient of £15,000 a year, ruler of half a million people and 3156 square miles of the richest territory in the Empire, left for his kingdom in Malaya. The Sultan has been staying at Grosvenor House, Park Lane, since the beginning of October. He came with a court of twenty-four, including Queen Anjong, favourite of his four wives, and seven of his forty-three children. The aged Sultan and his young and beautiful wife developed a liking for English poultry for dinner, but to conform with the requirements of the Mohammedan faith it was necessary to keep live birds at the hotel. Coops were prepared for them in the kitchen yard. The crowing of cockerels in the heart of the West End mystified Park Lane residents. The birds were killed and prepared for the table by the Sultan’s own chefs from Selangor. It was decided to make a curry of the birds that remained when the Sultan announced the date of his departure. His six sons and other members of the party bought a large number of presents at a sixpenny bazaar. They also bought ready-made suits at a firm of multiple tailors. Purchases at the bazaar ranged from kitchen utensils to wearing apparel, toys, and toilet requisites. Despite the fact that one hundred trunks and boxes had been brought from Malaya, it was found that many more were wanted. Sons of the Sultan descended on two trunk stores in Edgware Road and Praed Street. They bought twenty trunks, suit-cases, and portable wardrobes. The packing had been nearly completed when it was discovered that there was no room for the kitchen utensils. They were packed in a large carpet destined to decorate a room in the Sultan's palace. When this strange .parcel had been secured with ropes, two men carried it to the motor lorry that was required, in addition to the hotel omnibus, to convey the luggage to the station.