FROM A CLUBMAN’S CHAIR

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVIII, Issue 21560, 24 January 1940, Page 11

FROM A CLUBMAN’S CHAIR

Reductions In Royal Household Tales Of A Courier (Specially written for " The Timaru Herald" by Charles Martin) LONDON, December 21. Despite the war’s added cares and responsibilities, the King has found time recently to investigate the possibilities of a reduction in the personnel of the Royal Household. His Majesty has in mind the elimination of some of the traditional appointments which no longer serve any useful purpose. No drastic re-arrangement is likely to occur; the holders of such posts will not be asked to resign; but when they retire no successors will be appointed. I understand that one office in the Royal Household destined for extinction is that of Master of the Horse. Until the arrival of the machine age this appointment was of some importance. But so few horses are now required for State purposes that the position of Master has become purely a nominal one. I expect the present holder, the Duke of Beaufort, will be the last. Responsibility for the remaining horses, and there will always be a few in the Royal service, doubtless will be vested in the Crown Equerry.

“Jimmie” the Skeleton On the outbreak of war an avalanche of cancellations descended upon hotels and restaurants. All over the country, but especially in London, dinners, banquets, dances and other functions arranged for the winter months, were abandoned. Within a week or two. however, organisers were beginning to rebook, and catering establishments took on new heart.

Annual banquets of historic City Companies were among the cancellations. Some liverymen decided to forgo festive occasions until after the war; others refused to permit any break in continuity. The Worshipful Company of Glass Sellers, for instance, resolved that come what might they would carry on as usual, as they did during the Napoleonic Wars.

Accordingly the Glass Sellers held their annual banquet the other day. in an ancient City hall. Before the feast they attended service, as is their custom, in the Wren Church at Garllckhithe, so called because hundreds of years ago garlic was sold on a bank of the Thames nearby. It is at this church that a remarkably well preserved skeleton is exhibited in a glass case. Believed to date from Stuart times, the skeleton is known affectionately as "Jimmie” and has proved a great attraction to overseas visitors.

Maharajahs Were His Specialty Talking of visitors to London reminds me that the drastic curtailment of world travelling necessitated by the war has deprived one well known Londoner of his job—Mr F. N. Wagner, the chief courier of a leading travel agency. For many years Mr Wagner has worked in the department of his flrm which caters for the needs of Royalty and other distinguished personages. He specialises in Maharajahs.

Mr Wagner has many stories to tell of his experiences, which include 17 world tours. At the start of one of them the late Gaekwar of Baroda casually handed him the keys of his luggage—46B pieces weighing 17 tons. The Nawab of Ramnur insisted on bringing his own staff of chefs and his own portable kitchen.

An American millionaire once engaged the chief courier for a tour of every Napoleonic landmark in Europe, a tour which lasted six months. Another eccentric traveller wanted to be taken to “the world’s coldest spot." Mr Wagner escorted him to Yakutsk In Siberia. Schoolboys Live in a Palace Of the evacuated children who have returned to London and other towns in the danger zones, some have been glad to get back to their normal surroundings: others are perfectly happy in their new homes and express no desire to leave them. Among the evacuees who are not anxious for a restoration of normal arrangements are the 400 boys of Malvern College who are now living at Blenheim Palace. This 18th century mansion, the seat of the Duke of Marlborough, is the largest private house in England. It can provide sleeping accommodation for an entire public school and still leave a wing for the family. It was not quite big enough to provide all the requisite classrooms, so a number of wooden huts have been erected in the grounds. The Duke has given the boys the freedom of the Palace and the estate, and has agreed to allow one of his ornamental lakes to be used as a swimming pool. He takes a keen interest in the school games and regularly entertains the prefects to dinner “The Beggar’s Opera” I mentioned recently the unusual War Office official who thought that the “immortal generals Bach. Beethoven and Mozart" quoted’in a letter of an Imaginative German, referred to living soldiers. The current revival in London of the 18th century “The Beggar’s Opera." reminds me of another official, this time connected with the Treasury, who at a previous revival a few years qgp. sent a demand for Income tax to the theatre, addressed to "John Gray. Esq.” At a fairly recent exhibition of Turner drawings in London a letter arrived at the gallery addressed to "L. M. W. Turner. Esq.” and marked "Please forward if away.” The proprietor of the gallery decided that the artist, who died in 1851. was really too far away for the letter to be forwarded. He opened it. and found inside an offer from a photographer to Mr Turner for a complimentary sitting. The Drake Tradition It is recorded that Drake refused to let the poximity of the Spanish Armada interrupt his game of bowls. When Henry Cotton was playing a challenge match for the Red Cross on a golf course pear Edinburgh, enemy raiders were seen and heard in the vicinity. Pausing in the act of driving off, the world’s greatest golfer glanced at the sky with much the same expression as he might direct at a not particularly well behaved crowd of spectators. Then he hit a perfect drive down the fairway.