DUCHESS AND CHARLESTON

Waikato Times, Volume 102, Issue 17076, 13 April 1927, Page 4

DUCHESS AND CHARLESTON

GAY DOINGS ON RENOWN. ..

Aboard the Renown, H.R.I-I. the Duchess of York has been the unconscious instigator of a bloodless revolution in the Royal Navy. She and Equerry Buist sounded the deathknell of the sailors’ hornpipe and introduced to Jack, in its stead, the Charleston, with all its variations. When Her Royal Highness started the Royal dancing class on dock—near the Captain’s cookhouse, the crew stood spell-bound as the dainty lililc dancing mistress put the Duke and ihis staff and the Renown’s officers through dozens of new hops, steps, and kicks.

Equerry Buist partnered the fair Royal teacher in the majority of the deck exhibitions. Also in the Scotch reels, Strathspeys, and country folk dances, she revived at sea by way of variation. One sailor’s eye-full of the Royal lesson soon had its effect fore and ai'L.

The lower deck to a man threw overboard the hornpipe and followed the lead of the Duchess.

In the gallery the chef’s staff had difficulty in breaking an egg or harboring a potato without doing it to Blackbottom music.

Only the ancient traditions of the silent service prevented the lads in blue from kicking their way to jobs at the piping of bosun’s whistle, and the rotund and rubicund petty officers from treading the heavy fantastic to their multifarious duties in the name of the King. Off duty there was no restraint. From one end of the lower deck to the other, jolly Jack Charlestoned to his dinner, Blackbottomed, from his tea, and Scots’ reeled with his pannikin for the historic li o’clock rum jssue.