Colourful Margaret Much In The News

Chronicle (Levin), 1 November 1949, Page 5

Colourful Margaret Much In The News

Received Mondav 9 p.m. LONDON, Oct. 31. Since her return to London from a holidav in Scotland, Princess Margaret has liguted a great deal in the newspapers. Slie ]i:iid two visits last week '• the Cominons to listen to the debate ■n Britain's economic affairs and on the second oecasion was the eause of tradition being abaiuloned. A t'ew minutes before the Princess 1 anived to take her seat in the Speak- . '•r's Gallery it wasfound that rain water | ■1 as leaking through the roof, floodmg 1 a -ection of the gallery. The Princess, aho was aecompanied bv Mrs CliftonBrown, wife of the Speaker, Mrs Attlee and Ladv Cripps, was therefore obliged tp Sit in the Pecr's Gallery. One or tw of the dispossessed peers, including Ieird Woolton, therefore went to the dry seciion of the Speaker's Gallery, usually reserved for "women onlv. " The Prim-ess listened to the debate for two hours. There are varicms reports eirculating about her, one that slie expressed a wish to the King and Queen not onlv to help her si.ster, Princess Elizabeth, with her social engagements but also to do some kind of routine work. Oue suggestion is slie niay follow her sister's footsteps aml jdin oue of the services. It is stated slie has the romantic amhition of beenming a writer and that she would like to have been a journalist. The Ameriean magazine "Lit'c," this week publislies an article on Prmpess Margaret and deseribes her as

"the liveliest and most amusabie person her family has produc.ed in several centuries. if not for all time." Eaying heavy stress on Princess Margaret 's love of fun and her pranks since infancv Ihe story portrays her as a lively 19-vear-old girl__who has a lot of friends and many beaux, k.eeps most of Britain approving of her gaiety, and makes some wonder what will happen next. Princess Margaret is described as Britain Is "joint national debutante" because in this Royal Princess other girls fmd an outlet for expression — or for dreaming themselves in her plaee dancing with heirs to dukes or peers and supplying "colour and girlish freshness to the drab national scene. " " Anti-Margaret factions, " says "Life," are to be found in "widely separated quarters" — among non-epis-copalB protestants "who tend to be unfashionable" and high Anglieans "who make up what used to be the ruliiig class. " But on a show of hands the "unreservedly pro-Margaret f action " would walk away with the vote, for it eonsists of the great socialised ordinary hard-working masses.