LONDON'S CORONATION DRAWS NEAR

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 86, 28 April 1937, Page 11

LONDON'S CORONATION DRAWS NEAR

l Our Own Correspondent)

(Frorr

London, March 4. T>OTH the King and Queen and Queen Mary are beginning now to accept invitations to dinner at night, and the select little circle of hostesses which used to entertain the late King George and the Queen Mother are planning small intime evening affairs at which the latter will meet interesting guests. The Earl and Countess of Granard, who always gave at least one dinner-party each spring in honour of Their Majesties in ihe last long reign, are to have the pleasure of entertaining Queen Mary this week, and this dinner-party is likely to be fdllowed by several others as the weeks go on. The King and Queen, who are very attached to the Marchioness of Londonderry, had dinner with her at Londonderry House a night or two ago, and have also accepted other invitations of a social nature, which they want to fit in with their official duties before the Crv»"»nation.

Lord Chamberlain Regrets. Charmingly worded little notes, which will mean disappointment for scores of girls, are being sent out from the Lord Chamberlain's office. They express the Lord Chamberlain's great regret that owing to the number of applications for presentation at this year's Courts being largely in excess of the numbers tliat can be accepted;, it will not be possible for him to submit their names. Telegrams have been despatched to girls "finishing" abroad, who would have retumed home during the next few days' full of excitement and plans for their presentation, their parents feeling that they cannot face the ordeal of damping their spirits on the arrival platform at Victoria. The explanation is that, numerous debutantes were left over from last year, dozens of girls are coming from the .Dominions for the Coronation and have to be fitted into the presentation lists, and there is an unusually large number in this couhtry who have just reached debutante age.

It would be necessary to hold an extra Court during the season if all the names submitted were accepted, and, as this,. appears to be out of the question, thedisappointed girls will have to wait until next year to make their curtseys. Queen 's Tartan. Scotland is keenly interested to see What tartan Queen Elizabeth will wear when she pays her first visit to Balmoral. She has a wide variety of choice, and might even follow the precedent set up by Queen Victoria, who had .a tartan of her own specially manufactured. The wearing of some tartans is very rigidly controlled, and in the case of one clan no one is permitted to wear it except when the express permission of the chief 'has been obtained— a rule easy of enforcement, since the tartan in question is only made by one firm. By an old arrangement with the Queen's family of Bowes-Lyon, Queen Elizabeth was privileged, even before her marriage, to wear the Royal Stuart tartan. There are, however, several tartans appropriate to the use of members of the Royal family, notably the Royal Stuart, the Hunting Stuart and the Dress Stuart. Leading Off.

As was to be expected in this Coronation year, dance hostesses are to be very active; and the avoidance of clashing dates- must be quite a problem. Dances for debutantes normally range from May to July; this year a start was made in February, and the list of dances already arranged- is phenomenally long. Lady Askwith, whose husband, Lord Askwith, was formerly known as "The Strike Breaker," had the distinction of leading off last week with a small dance for her grand-daughter, Miss Sheila Graham. The hostess is a member of the distinguished Peel family, and when she married Lord Askwith in 1908 she was the widow of Major Henry Graham of the 20th Hussars. She has entered very fully into Lord Askwith's activities in the field of the higher education of women; and is a charming hostess. The debs present included Lady Jean Ogilvy, Lord and Lady Airlie's daughter, the Hon. Mrs. Arthur Asquith's daughter Mary, Miss Anne Capel, a , daughter of Lady Westmorland by a former marriage, and Lady Mary Rose FitzRoy, a sister of the young Duke' of Grafton, who lost his life as the result of a motor crash last year. An Attractive Personality. At the Highland Ball one of the outstanding personalities on the dance floor was the Queen's pretty niece, the Hon. Elizabeth Elphinstone. She was deputising for her mother, Lady Elphinstone, and, dressed in a very simple frock with .the tartan sash of her clan across the corsage, she seemed not only to know everybody but to be friendly with them all. She is tall and fair, carries herself extraordinarily well, and has that gift of happy friendliness which characterises the whole of the Strathmore family. Scottish country dances were a feature of the programme, and nobody danced them with more enjoyment than this granddaughter of the Earl and Countess. of Strathmore. She is unusually fresh^oking— a tribute to the healthy, openair life she lives in Scotland— and more than one Sassenach at the ball inquired who the "attractive Scottish lassie" was. Long Leave. Probably no boy up from Eton for Long Leave enjoyed the little holiday quite so much as young Viscount Lascelles, elder son of the Princess Royal and Lord Harewood, who went back to his house on Tuesday morning. First of all, the leave coincided with the wedding anniversary of his father and mother, and he was at home to share in the little programme of festivities they had arranged. Then, Queen Mary had several social engagements on her list and he was included in her party for these, notably the visit to the Guards' Barracks for the St. David's Day presentation of leeks. Lord Lascelles was fascinated by the scene. Apart from pantomimes and children's plays, he had never been to the theatre until he accompanied Queen Mary and his parents there on Saturday, when he saw, as his first play, "The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse."

King Edward Stamps. I understand that when the new George VI. stamps and the Coronation stamps are issued early in April, the design for the King's head will differ fundamentally from the design for the King Edward VIII. stamps. The latter was based on a photographic reproduction, and the result, though greatly admired in some art circles, came in for a goqd deal of

viiiiiiiiiiiilliliiililillttiiitiiiiiiiiitfiKiiintiiiiiffttttfitiitint general criticlsm. For the new stamps the engraver's art will be more generously employed. It is a mistake to assume that, as soon as the next stamps are on sale at the post offices, the King Edward issue will be withdrawn. There is always •a stock of some 250,000,000 held in reserve, and they will continue to.be on sale till the stock is exhausted. But for

""irituntititiiiifiitiMttiinMtiritttiiiittittiiiiitiiiiiiiitfiiiiiittiitit the fact that the public will probably ask specially for the new issue this stock would be very speedily exhausted. Enormous though the reserve sounds, it represents a supply only sufficient to meet requirements for a few days. It is estimated that sometliing like 20,000,000 stamps are sold every day at the various post offices thrcvg'h-nil Ihe country.