HOME MAKING AN ART

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 151, 22 March 1939, Page 4

HOME MAKING AN ART

Lady Batterbee's Interests Include Gardening

DOMESTIC ACCOMPLISHMENT A keen gardener, collector and homemaker, Lady Batterbee, wife of Sir Harry Batterbee, High Commissioner for the United Kingdom in New Zealand, has interests of variety enough to find her many sympathetic friends among Wellington women. Lady Batterbee regards home-mak-ing as an art, and it is obvious to all who enter her home that she is a master-craftsman of all domestic accomplishment. Though she has bad so little time to settle into the house in Wesley Terrace which is to be the High Commissioner’s home for the present, it already reflects the personality of those who have come to live in it. In true relation to her gardening interests, Lady Batterbee enjoys flower arrangement, and an artistic vase of delphiniums and hydrangeas in the drawing-room refloated her talent. In England, she told the interviewer, she grew bulbs in fibre, thus having a pretty show in her windows all through the cold, flowerless months. Lady Batterbee has the quiet sense of humour that goes with a quiet, dignified bearing. She has not been to New Zealand before, but already she has seen enough of the country and the people to like them and remarked on the wonderful hospitality shown Sir Harry Batterbee and herself.

The house in Wesley Terrace overlooks a jumble of rooftops to the railway yards and shipping, then across the harbour to the Hutt Valley, and Lady Batterbee is enchanted with the view. She is also fascinated with the variety and types of architecture in the city and suburbs. Her interests embrace far more than gardening and the domestic. She enjoys plays and loves music; she likes a good movie. She has been a president of the Girl Guide movement in her district in England, and has taken an active interest in women’s institutes. •

Reading is a favourite pastime, and the collecting of rare china pieces and etchings is another interest. She has brought her china pieces, etchings and paintings to New Zealand. Lady Batterbee shares her artisticinterests with her niece, Miss Isobel Biggar, who has come to New Zealand to assist her aunt in her many activities as High Commissioner’s wife. .Miss Bigger is a keen sportswoman, being fond of tennis and swimming. She has already demonstrated her interest in amateur theatricals by joining the Wellington Repertory Society as an acting member. Sir Harry and Lady Batterbee have an only son who is studying in Switzerland and whose particular interest is languages. The Family Pet. The only pet Lady Batterbee has brought with her is a dog. “Poor Paddy’s lost his waist,” she said, looking out of the windows to the pathetic brown figure of a golden cocker spaniel locked in quarantine in an alleyway of the tennis court. “The butcher spoilt him so much on board ship that he has grown too fat,” she explained. Paddy stood uj> and cocked his shaggy ears as if he knew he was the cause of the faces at the window.

“They all fell in love with him in the Rangitata,” said Lady Batterbee, “and I believe the butcher, in whose charge he was, nearly wept when the time came to part with him. He was a great favourite with all on board and the officers used to let him sleep in their cabins.”

Of a delightful, sunny disposition, Lady Batterbee is a charming asset to Wellington society, and her easy winning manner will make friends for her with all.