England — the Heart of the Empire

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 153, 24 March 1939, Page 6 (Supplement)

England — the Heart of the Empire

HEART of’ the Empire and “Home” still to most New Zealand people, the British Isles, cradle of an Empirebuilding- race, are naturally the main terminal of the new sea-route to the Antipodes pioneered by the Dominion Monarch. A visit to England is something undertaken at least once in a lifetime by piacticaily every New Zealander, and is something of which the memory is treasured thereafter. 'I he ancient, beautiful cities-, with their charm and their tradition, the lovely English countlyside as cared-for as a park, the formal, conventional, charming English people, are vastly different from the towns and hills and folk of this Dominion. London, greatest of the world’s capitals and centre of the commerce and social lite find Imperial government which mould the future of the entire British Commonwealth, is the heart of our national life, even though our homes are half the world away. The old grev river that Hows past London s walls extends its immemorial welcome to the children of the pioneers whose vanished ships towed down the 1 hames to sea a century ago

A Holiday You Will Never Forget

ENGLAND is the most wonderful holiday, resort in the world. Because of its vast population, it caters for every taste; because there are so many wealthy people there with money to burn and leisure the whole year through for the burning of it, it provides endless entertainments and diversions; while to the stranger from abroad its towns and counties and people are themselves a fascinating pageant against the beautiful backscreen of the English countryside.

LONDON is a city of enjoyment if you do not have to earn your living there. To explore London at all thoroughly will take a visitor a lifetime, for it is constantly changing, always eventful.

There you can see the clock round and never find the door of enjoyment closed. You can see a cricket match at Lords, or visit the Tower or Madame Tussaud’s, or walk in the

park or along the sombre river, or fight a duel at Bertrand’s or play polo at Ranelagh—or croquet —or sail on the river at Kingston. You can watch greyhound or speedway racing, or any of a hundred other entertainments devised solely for those who, like you, have nothing better to do than enjoy themselves. You can dine stylishly among the great at a famous Piccadilly or Park Lane hotel, or heartily in the Strand, or humbly, but well, at a continental cafe in Soho. Or you can eat by candlelight among the Bohemians at Chelsea or Hammersmith, or with the Orientals in Limehouse if you wish. You can see in person all the stage and musichall and cabaret

stars whose names and faces have been long familiar to you, at the famous and splendid theatres of the greatest city on earth. You can go to a different theatre every night of the week, and never see a dull or a second-rate show. You can go to the most tremendous and luxurious cinema-palaces imaginable. And afterwards you can go on to a cabaret for supper, and a night-club after if that sort of thing appeals to you, and have a second supper in the small hours of morning, and finally a sup of beer before breakfast with the Covent Garden porters bringing in the flowers and fruit and vegetables of a new day. Or you can go, as the English go, to the seaside, and sit in the sun-

shine, strangely just as hot as New Zealand sunshine, with ,a yard of beach to yourself and a nigger minstrel singing, and flags waving on the ornate buildings of the pier. Or bathe in utter solitude oij, Cormsn sands, and afterwards spend an hour in talk and ale with a sometime smuggler who remembers him they called the King of Prussia. Or hunt foxes in the Midland counties, or attend the races at Epsom and Goodwood, Ascot and Derby, or anything else you like. Whatever you do, however, you can be assured that it will 'be.different from anything you would be doing in New Zealand —different and entrancing.