People and Their Doings.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19270, 6 January 1931, Page 6

People and Their Doings.

Should M. L. Page Captain New Zealand? : Talbot Delights With Breezy Hitting : Princess Bettg And The King : Hoaxes Worked By Telephone.

SHOULD “CURLY ” PAGE, the captain of the Canterbury cricket team, be captain of the New Zealand cricket team which is to visit England? That is a queston that is being discussed a good deal among cricketers at the present time, and many who are in a good position to judge consider that he is the best skipper available in New Zealand. Both as a captain and as a player, M. L. Page has done wonderfully well. He became prominent as a cricketer very early, playing for Canterbury as soon as he had left the Boys' High School. He has had a long experience as captain. During his last two years at the Boys’ High School he was captain of the school team, he has captained various teams in the country, for some years he was captain of the Old Boys’ Club, and is now captain of the St Albans’ side. His good work as < .ptain of the Canterbury side this season has further enhanced his good reputation and strengthened the view of those who think that he should be given the wider scope in leadership that the captaincy of a New Zealand team would afford him. w w w

O. TALBOT is another cricketer who ’won prominence in the game almost as soon as he had left school. Followers of school cricket will well

remember his great performances for Christ’s College in the few years preceding 1922. He went practically from school to representative cricket, and, a year or two later, made a century for Canterbury. For a while he % left the game alone, but he took it up seriously again two

years ago, and has since been an asset to the Canterbury side. He never fails to delight the crowd with the breezy and hard hitting way in which he makes his runs, and he has shown that he has the determination needed to hold his end up when his side is in difficulties.

D. BLUNDELL, the young. Wellington fast medium bowler, who has a good chance of being included in the team that is to go to England, was seen in action for the first time in Canterbury during the match that has just, concluded. His steady trundling made a very good impression. A follower of the game wl o last saw Blu Tell play when he was about fifteen years of age and still a student at Waitaki Boys’ •Tigh School, remarked, a c soon as the young Wellingtonian took the ball, that Lis acti.n and run were still exactly the same as they were when he was at school. Blundell is a Cambridge blue, and he pla- ed for three years in England. Unfortunatelj, he was hurt in the second innings against Canterbury and Lowry felt keenly the loss of so reliable a bowler.

iy/[R J. H. THOMAS has been charmed by the glimpse he was privileged to obtain of the home life of their Majesties the King and Queen. There was something particularly appealing to him in the little Princess Elizabeth distracting attention from affairs of State for a moment in order' that she should wish her grandpa goodnight. “ When that grandchild comes to the King,” commented Mr Thomas, “ he is no longer the King, but just a grandfather like myself.” The incident he related added one more to those delightful and thoroughly natural episodes in the life of Princess Betty that the public loves so much to hear about. The world’s bestknown baby is at the same time a sweet and natural child, and all vivacity and charm that belong to her years. A delightful episode is related by Anne Ring in her “ Story of Princess Elizabeth.” On one occasion the King refrained from ringing the bell that would summon the Princess’s nurse, and, opening the door of his room, went into the corridor in search of her. Instantly a clear and guileless voice pursued him—“ Grandpa, Grandpa ! \ ou ve forgotten to shut the door! ” “ I had a party at Bognor,” remarked the Princess on another occasion when relating to her mother her holiday adventures. And then, sinking her voice to the whisper that she uses for startling intelligence, “and I made sand pies!” _ Well, now tell mummy which were the kind you made so very nicely,” she was asked. “ Apple sand cakes,” the whisper was thrilling and intense “And were they good to eat?” But apparently the delights ot the adventure stopped short of eating, for Princess Elizabeth indicated by a wry face, that, as food, her cakes were not successful. m w ® raiding of homes during the absence of the owners on holiday is becoming too frequent in New Zealand to be pleasant. The latest victim is Mr H. H. Sterling, general manager of railways. In this case the thieves appear to have made good use of a telephone call to ascertain the intended movements of their victim. There has been quite a plague in England recently of bogus telephone calls and bogus advertisements, and in some cases the victims have been put to considerable trouble. Last November an unknown man, by a series of telephone calls, hoaxed a number of West End business firms into sending representatives and goods to the house of the Marchioness of Huntly, m Grosvenor Square. The door bell rang at 10.30 a.m. Within a few minutes it had rung several times, announcing tfie arrival of the representatives of a well-known firm of jewellers, a firm of dress designers, a shoe-maker, a beauty specialist, and others. It- motor-errs the representatives brought with them jewels, dresses, coats, shoes, creams and lotions. There was dismay among the gathering when they were informed that the Marchioness knew nothing about it; that she had not asked them to call. They returned to their business

houses taking the unwanted articles with them.

In another case hundreds of men, from places as far apart as Maidstone, Reading, Bishop’s Stortford and Billericay, and practically every district in London, were the victims of a bogus advertisement in a London morning paper. it ran: “Young man required, bookkeeping; typing and office routine. Salary about £3. Apply personally, Bellingham Goods Depot, Bellingham Station, 5.E.6. Mr Arthur W. Wise, the proprietor of the business, said: “ About 300 young men came here bv train or tr... i hoping to get the post. In addition, I received more than fifty letters and telephone calls. I first had a telephone call asking me to accept the delivery c' a saloon car. A £2OOO car—which I had not ordered—with a liveried chauffeur, arrived at my house. The next was the arrival of a van-load of wallpaper.” sSP THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY. A when he attended the prize-giving at Sir Roger Manwood’s School. Sandwich, last month, was congratulated on the day being his 66th birthdav. Subsequently the Archbishop told the boys: “You are my birthday party. I don’t like on my birthday to think how old I am becoming, but rather to think how young I once was. When I recall my youth I have memories of occasions such as this, when I seldom got prizes and thought very little of the boys who did, but at which most of all I was generally bored stiff by the dignified and elderly gentlemen who used to address me. ® si? sS? 'p'ROM THE “STAR” of January 7, 1371.—T0 the electors. Gentlemen — With reference to Mr Richardson’s statement, which he published in the Star ”of to-night, viz., that I said to him: “ Thtre is the navvy Who came here to do all our contract works.” I beg most emphatically to deny having used those words, and when I heard I was accused of it, I immediately told Mr Richardson’s friend, who was with him at the time, that they w re entirely mistaken, and that I hac not used the words imputed to me. 11. Wynn Williams. (Mr Richardson \va c elected for the sea; ) A STRIKING SERMON by the Archbishop of Canterbury was reported in the cables. Dr Cosmo Gordon Lang is the son of a Presbyterian minister and the first son of a Presbyterian to become Primate. At first it looked as though his steps were turned towards the woolsack, for his early studies were directed to the Bar Then came a visit to the East End of London which proved a dramatic turning-point in his career. He was so impressed by the work of Dr W T innington Ingram (now Bishop of London) among the poor that he abandoned his legal plans and entered the Church. His cousin, Mr Matheson Lang, the eminent actor, once said of Dr Lang that he would have made as great a success on the stage, had he chosen it, as in the Church.