Echoes of the North

Ladies' Mirror, Volume V, Issue 6, 1 December 1926, Page 6

Echoes of the North

After all, it’s only right that each season should have its own particular holiday, so that people who live in towns may snatch a long week-end in the country and see what's happening. What do we Aucklanders know of Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter, beyond varying our clothes and lighting or not lighting our fires? Summer is well provided for by the Christmas vacation; Autumn has Easter, and. fortunately, Spring scrapes in with a few hours on Labour Day. We will willingly forego a long weekend in the country in Winter. It’s so muddy, and gum-boots distort anv self-respecting ankle. «s '’jphese thoughts passed through my mind as 1 sat in the Rotorua train on the Saturday before Labour Day Monday. Almost with a start I realised what a busy time it was in the country. Lambs with long tails were getting “grown up" and almost sedate as they nibbled the grass quite a long distance from mother. Some of the older sheep were even sheared! I wondered if any colouring could be more vivid than the daring blue of the sky, the emerald green of the low-lying fields, the clumps of yellow broom, and the almost fierce red of the corrugated iron roofs of solitary homesteads. A roof of softcoloured tiles, mellowed with age and moss, suits an English scene. Life there runs along definite ruts of tradition and custom. The atmosphere is not so clear, and the colours blend more softly. But in the country here everything looks so fresh and young, and so full of vitality, just like New Zealand itse! f. «s T h f. floods had upset the usual Spring effects round Mercer. Paddocks were turned into lakes and trees seemed to he sitting in them, rather than standing. "We can’t swim; we’re stuck,” they seemed to say. The cabbage trees become O'Cedar mops without any handles, and the poor rushes looked as if they were drowning and crying for help. The willows must have wished they had been shingled. Their new tresses were all muddy and floated in the water. Land and water were all mixed up, and a car passing along a canal-like road was up to its axles in water. Further on, the water vanished and the dry land appeared, decorated with blossoming may-trees, pale yellow wattles and the starry flowers of the manuka. n Mew Zealand trees have not travelled far, except, of course, in botanical gardens. Manuka, rimu, and pohutakawa arc not found among the trees in other countries like the Australian gum. The eucalyptus is a veritable “globe trotter.” It waves its long grey leaves throughout California and its long, slim, silver trunk adds to the beauty of Southern France, Italy, and the English, South Coast. The only New Zealand native tree I have ever seen outside New Zealand is the cabbage

tree in Torquay, the popular "all-the-year-round” sea resort in South Devon. n r F'he train seemed to go along its way to Rotorua very leisurely. Probably the floods were responsible, but it gave an Australian tourist the opportunity to repeat a favourite story against the New Zealand train service. He said that an. inspector had told a railway clerk that a local farmer was going

to take action against the railway, because some of his cows had been killed by the trains. "You've got it all wrong,” replied the clerk, "he’s not complaining about his cows being killed.” “What's his complaint then:” asked the inspector. “Merely,” replied the other, “that the passengers lean out of the carriage windows and milk his cows as the train passes.”

l ”J , hc Auckland Sketch Club held its second exhibition in the Art Society Building last month. Over three hundred pictures were hung, and this testified to the keenness and enthusiasm of the fifty or sixty members. Mr. Page Rowe, the president, called on Professor Eitt to open the exhibition. Professor Fitt spoke on the need of spontaneity in art and in life. He said that civilisation, with its artificial conditions, deprives us

all of spontaneity, that instead of dancing and singing in a tram, if we feel like it, we have to repress all these joyous natural feelings until we find an isolated spot. Then, perhaps, the mood has passed. Sketching, however, can be done anywhere and at any time, just when and where the mood happens. Some of the sketches hung on the walls looked as if they had been done anyhow, and there certainly

appeared to be spontaneity in the use of colour. However, there was a good number of landscapes, an excellent water colour of a garden in summer, and one or two welldrawn heads in pencil. It seems very hard luck that keen and talented, as some of the members undoubtedly are, that good tuition is so hard to get in Auckland. What a pity there is not a scheme for "assisted emigration” and a good job guaranteed for artists who have learned their business in the world’s art centres. n pictures come and pictures go every week, and it is seldom that one makes any definite impression. Now and again there is a film which moves the audience to praise or blame, and still more occasionally there is one which makes it think. Last week I saw "Nell Gwyn,” alleged to be a British picture, although it is shown in, New Zealand through an American film company. We all know that Britain cannot technically produce films as well as America. Nevertheless, we all feel that Britain can produce films with better stories and a saner and more wholesome atmosphere than the average American film producing company. At the present moment the problem of British films is agitating the whole of the Empire and it is generally hoped that the Imperial Conference will come forward with some life-saving scheme for British films. “Nell Gwyn" demonstrated how desperate is this need. Why must a British film company (unless it is financed by America) employ an American screen actress such as Dorothy Gish to play the part of Nell Gwyn? Dorolhv Gish is probably an excellent screen comedienne for American characterisations, hut that does not qualify her to play the part of an essentially English character such as Nell Gwyn. There are hundreds of suitable and capable English actresses who could have played that part in a British film. It is impossible to imagine a worse travesty of Nell Gwyn than that given by Dorothy Gish. Her behaviour is suited to a modern third-rate American cabaret, but never to the English Court in Charles NTs reign. The title of tin: picture should have been “Dorothy Gish." for neither the story of Nell Gwyn nor any other character get a chance. Apart from Dorothy Gish's salary, this production must have cost very little. The settings are cheap and unambitious, and apparently the story has just "happened" by the stringing together of a few incidents which give Miss Gish and her figure scope for displaying their several charms. If British films can only be helped to success by such intervention from another country, rather let them stumble along in the old way which was at least sincere, or die an honourable death. n Jl is interesting to sec that quite a number of the chosen “Beauties” in the “Miss New Zealand” Contest had long hair. Five of the chosen

twelve of Auckland rejoiced in long tresses. The other day I was startled to see a man with a most luxuriant growth of long curly hair walking along Queen Street. His clothes were in correct masculine fashion his face just an ordinary face, but all his unconventional ideas seem to have expressed themselves in his fierce growth of hair. So aggressive it was, that he wore a net of broad mesh to hold it down. Like most fashions, we have to thank the French for the present short hair mode. Whenever short hair has been the fashion for women, it has always been originated by the French. George Sand received it in 1848, but Joan of Arc had started it five centuries ago. Taking it back to classical times means, of course, taking it out of the range of French fashions, and a recent discovery of a statue of the Phoenician goddess, Astarte, shows her with her hair arranged in this way. This proves how right French taste always is, the Parisian will retort. Whatever its origin the shingle fashion is bringing prosperity to ladies' hairdressers to-day. The First Annual Banquet of the Master Ladies' Hairdressers' Association was held this month in Syney at the Ambassadors. There was an air of opulence about the whole affair and the menu reflected an approppriate tonsorial atmosphere. The

dinner began with "huitre transformation" and went on to "supreme de schnapper de Marcelle," and "Salade de Cheveux" (salad of hair) which did not apparently hold any horror for barbers. Responding to this toast, the slightly intoxicated Chief Secretary agreed with other speakers who urged that ladies' hairdressers should be licensed, to prevent unqualified imposters from exploiting the public. "It is not so long ago," he declared, "since anybody in this State could hang out the s(h) ingle word "Dentish," and pull the heads off anybody who came along." At the word "shingle" there was some feeling applause. "A century ago," he added, many ladies did not even wash their hair. The shampoo has changed all that." (Pronounced like the Irish country, accentuated on the first syllable.)

jpurther news about the forthcoming Royal Tour states that the Earl of Cavan will be the chief of staff to the Duke of York and that he and Lady Cavan are anticipating the tour with the keenest pleasure. The earl is an ex-lieutenant of the Tower of London and was aide-de-camp to the Governor General of Canada. His brilliant military reputation was won in the South African War and increased during the war when he commanded the Guards Division. He is sixty years of age, and married Lady Joan Mulholland, his second wife, who is the youngest daughter of the Earl of Stratford, Capt. the Hon. A. E. S. Mulholland, four years ago. Her late husband was killed in action at Ypres in 1914, and some months after her only daughter, Daphne, was born.