A £200,000 HOLIDAY,

Waikato Times, Volume 119, Issue 9817, 22 February 1936, Page 21 (Supplement)

A £200,000 HOLIDAY,

YEHUDI MENUHIN’S PLANS. RETIREMENT TWO YEARS. MONEY MEANS NOTHING. (By Air Mail.) LONDON, Jan. 17. The priceless Menuhin violin was, so far as the public is concerned, closed in its case yesterday. It will not be heard in public again for two years. I spent the day of its closing with the \lenuhin family. I felt as though 1 were in the pages of “ Alice in Wonderland ” ten minutes after I had left , the wet, noisy streets. The hoy whose retirement Is depriving him of not less than £200,000 was sitting on the radiogram listening critically to some recent recordings before sanctioning their release to the public. Hepzibah was telling me in Russian, in my right ear, exactly how she proposes to bring up her hypothetical l children. (She will toe 16 next birthday.) Yalta was asking me in French, in the other ear, whether I would change ices with her, as she did not like raspberry ones and wanted a chocolate one. It was difficult to realise that on the radiogram was probably the greatest violinist of all time; that the budding would-be mother on my right was a pianist of a genius to match 'his; and that the ice cream negotiator would be famous in her own right even were she not a Menuhin. Money Refused. For a while father chatted about the retirement. “To Yehudi, of course, money means nothing as such,” he said. “He was offered thousands of pounds recently to play in private for an evening.” “ He turned It down automatically. No money could hire Yehudi to play for the amusement of a group of rich people. Music, to him, is something saored and spiritual. “ We are going to our little estate in California, arid there we will live in a little guest house made of wood. We will take it in turn to cook—the three children, mother and myself—and there will he some severe critics. •Then, with the assistance of an architect, we are going to build our own house with our own hands. 44 To show you how little we seek - vast fortunes, under our property there ■ are immense deposits of oil. “ We have agreements from all our neighbours that they will not sell their property for the drilling of oil fo ■ 100 years. Mother the Inspiration of the Family. 44 Yehudi will be 19 on the 22nd of this month. For the next two years, 1 perhaps the most vital of his life, he is going to have sunshine, leisure, and less of me and more of his mother as oompany. 44 She is the heart, the soul, the inspiration of the family. I am merely the watchdog, the one who does the rough work with the world.”