MAYFAIR JOTTINGS.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 145, 20 June 1931, Page 20 (Supplement)

MAYFAIR JOTTINGS.

FLOWER PICTURES ARE COLLECTED BY THE QUEEN (From Our London Lady Correspondent.) There is a great demand just now for little flower pictures. The artists who specialise in this branch of painting—and a great many of them are women—are as busy as they can be, and are having rather a pleasant time because people like to have bits and corners of their own gardens transferred to canvas. This means usually a two or three davs’ visit to the country and, although the weather is not yet too settled, the artist has a delightful, restful time away fro.a the roar of Chelsea traffic. Both Princess Mary and the Duchess of York have followed the Queen’s example and begun to collect flower studies. Her Majesty recently added to her’s a charming piece by Mrs. Leleux, which 3s in the Royal Academy, and which shows a most effective study in Kew Gardens. FUTURE QUEEN OF HOLLAND. The future Queen of Holland, the Princess Juliana Wilhelmina, is now of age, and naturally gossip at The Hague Court is busy with her matrimonial intentions. Those who have met her at the University describe her as a genuinely charming girl, active and healthy despite her extremely studious disposition. In build and looks she rather resembles her father, but her figure tends towards that buxomness traditionally associated with the Dutch. She luls had a first-class education, for the Dutch are immensely keen on the intellectual side, but is also a well-instructed cook-chatelaine, and her literary habit is combined with real love of country life. Princess Juliana will, when she becomes Queen, well maintain the best Dutch traditions. THE TRINCE AT A DANCE. No wonder hostesses move Heaven and earth to secure the interest of the Prince of Wales in their ventures! Nearly a thousand tickets were sold for Lady Milbanke’s Derby ball which the Prince had promised to attend. It was quite the smartest and gayest ball of the season. SISTER-LOVE. The statement that Miss Margaret MacMillah has been honoured with the C.B.E. in recognition of her “services to the Nursery School Movement,” gives no hint of the pathetic beauty implicit In those services. For it was as a memorial to a dearly loved eister that Margaret MacMillan founded the wonderful oasis in Deptford slums which is saving hundreds of tiny children from perils of body and soul, and turning them into healthy, happy youngsters with a good start in life. In the bungalow-like rooms, set among flowers, of the “Rachael MacMillan Settlement,” these babies are washed, prettily clothed for their school day, taught, fed, played with, put to sleep for a necessary mid-day rest, and given all the fresh air available. NO ESCAPE. Some seaside towns are taking steps to preserve as much of their holiday amenities as they can by refusing to license speed boats. Though thia is all to the good, and does something to prevent visitors being driven away by uproar more fitting to the Strand than a seaside beach, it meets only part of a growing nuisance. No control exists apparently, go far as the local authorities are concerned, over private speed boats, and these are immensely on the increase. Thus do the road hogs, who made our country walks a misery and a danger, carry their invasion still further. These “carbariane” have ruined the peace and quietude of the upper reaches of the Thames, and are now vulgarising and spoiling even the jolliest seaside places. TWEEDS FOR AMERICA. I understand that there are a number of American buyers in London now who represent the big storee in New York, Washington and Chicago, and that they are all concentrating on the choice of English tweecte. Their purchases of other fashion lines are much smaller than in previous years, and they say that the American shops are nervous about building up stocks until they see how much money women are going to have to spend. The shops are buying tweeds, however, without any such reserve, because they know that English tweeds cannot be equalled anywhere else, and that women will be bound to want them. BRIGHTER BEACHES. This summer promises to be a season of perfectly dazzling beach parades. In despair of ever getting men to wear vivid colours on ordinary occasions, the outfitters have gone nap on jazz bathing costumes. These are all two-piece suits, often backless, to secure the utmost violet-ray effect on the wearer’s spine, and of rainbow hues. They fairly eclipse anything that women have yet dared to display in the way of fantastic swimming costumes. The man who ventures forth on the beach this season attired in an old-fashioned navy blue one-piece bathing suit will hear the very gulls whistling derision. He will be like Enobarbus: “Alone the villain of the earth, and feel myself so most.” MAYFAIR NIGHTS. A new romance is added to our old West End squares. Now the London season is in full swing and every night there are smart dance parties, the garden squares of Mayfair and Belgravia are in great demand. These warm nights sitting-out indoors is not so popular as walking-out in the squares, and almost any midnight the wayfarer encounters strolling couples in ballroom attire. It revives Victorian memories of these same old-fashion able squares, because the ladies now all wear long skirts, the trains of which they have to gather up as they walk. The long-skirt vogue has also changed the style of our dance programme. A slower measure is now being adopted, and what was called “hot jazz” is almost a thing of the past. AMY IN AN OFFICE. It. is now generally known, I imagine, that Miss Amy Johnson was employed in the office of a very well-known firm of London solicitors before she started on her flight to Australia. She may have learnt some of her daring while she was at this work. The Ifirm in question is in the closest touch with underwriters at Lloyd’s, and is one of tho leading firms handling insurance cases. The business must be ohe of the most successful in the city, and is the envy of th© older established practices. But everyone who knows the individual partners admits that this success has largely been due to the boldness and resource with which every problem is tackled. “Amy” was therefore in quite the right office atmosphere.