IMPRESSIONS OF WHAKATANE GIRL IN GAY PAREE:

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 14, Issue 54, 21 October 1949, Page 5

IMPRESSIONS OF WHAKATANE GIRL IN GAY PAREE:

New Zealanders, and British people in general rate pretty high in France, accjrding to a Whakatane girl, Miss P. Winstone, daughter of Mr and Mrs A. W. Winstone, Victoria Av enue, who wrote her parents recently from Gay Paree. Getting into France from England was easy for the New Zealand girl, who was passed through the Customs with a minmium of formality, though other foreigners—and particularly Americans—were searched to the point of c mbarrassement, being "stripped almost to their skins." It seems the star spangled manner is not altogether tops in France. During the war, it is alleged Uncle Sam's nephews threw their weight around a bit in a way that chafed the Gallic spirit so that now the gum-chewing, o ark-spectacled tourist gets the hard eye. In fact the French greet them with a little less cordiality than they do the Germans who, though they entered France as conquerors, made some effort to ingratiate themselves with the populace. What seems to have got under the French hide so far as the Americans are concerned according to Miss Winstone's Paris j friends, was the high handed way in which Uncle Sam's emissaries got busy cornering fuel supplies to establish centrally heated offices and buying foodstuffs with a dazzling display of pelf. From a pal and a playmate, the French figured this a little too, too, so to speak. Getting way from international politics, Miss Winstone had a word to say about night life in Paris—or that part of it a young girl could see without exciting too much comment back home. Quite a fashionable resort over there, the Lido Cabaret, would probably be reckoned a pretty risque joint here, if the police didn't butt in to spoil the sport. What hit the Whakatanian's eye and sense of humour was the emphasis on the elaborate headdresses of the chorines. The chapeaux were definitely tops, but considering that Mademoiselle la danseuse wore nothing at all from neck to navel and very flimsy camouflage below that, the attention-getting value of the hat seemed sort of swamped.