TEA IN THE PALACE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 308, 29 December 1937, Page 7

TEA IN THE PALACE

ROYAL FAMILY CUSTOM PRINESSES AND PARENTS LONDON, Dec. 1. It is a rule at Buckingham Palace which only the most important State affairs can break that Their Majesties shall spend at least half an hour with the Princesses at tea. Queen Elizabeth dislikes the custom of handing tea round. Instead, the Royal party of four, sometimes with Queen Mary, the Duchess of Gloucester, or other intimates, have a proper tea, Scottish fashion, usually in the Queen’s drawing-room on the first floor.

There is honey for tea, also jam; both from the Royal farm at Windsor, bread and butter and cream cakes, in which Princess Margaret most delights. The Princesses come from the school-room and the King from the business-room, joining the Queer..

Then the tea is freshly mane in the * room. The kitchen is so far distant that if the tea were made there it would draw too much. The King insists, like his father, on fresh tea. When Their Majesties spend the week-end at Windsor the came practice is observed, except that the Queen often makes tea herself with an electric kettle. A strange flag over Buckingham Palace puzzled many Londoners when the King was at Sandringham. The Royal Standard was flown there, and the Queen’s own flag was hoisted for the first time at Buckingham Palace. It shows the arms of the Bowes-Lyons family quartered with the Royal Standard.