GAY HENLEY.

Hokitika Guardian, 13 August 1926, Page 3

GAY HENLEY.

RIVER PAGEANT OF BEAUTY AND FUN. HENLEY, July 1. Henley to-day was Henley as it ■should he—which is to say that it was a. most delectable mixture of colour, music, and cushioned easo on sunlit water, the whole having a nicety graduated seasoning of excitement. 'The “ River God ” was in his happiest mood, and had, it seemed, made a covenant with the wind and the sun to produce a day all asparkle in honour of this all-British regatta. Tho stewards’ enclosure and the famed lawns of Phyllis Court were stages for a pageant of beauty, beautifully adorned : even among tho long vistas of women and girls who reclined in boats down the length of tile course the eye could pick out no conventional river dress—for little craft carried a burden of fashion. Those who had the planning of the regatta had seen to it that there was an abundance of flowers to give to the setting its traditionav' charm. GRAMOPHONE PRELUDES. 'The river began to assume an air ot festivity very early. Long before racing began at noon punting parties, equipped with luncheon baskets, gramophones and gay parash’s were manoeuvring for places of vantage on both sides of the railed-olf course. Once the craft were moored, gramophones began a varied prelude to the day’s sport and jollity. A hand ashore struck up musical comedy airs and not to ho outdone in this business of serenading Henley, other smaller hands cruised up and down the river.

Then there was a concert troupe of King’s College Hospital students afloat, who alone would have made it a merry day. They had a piano aboard, and they sang the jolliest of sea chanties, and gathered in cash with butterfly nets. “WELL ROWED!” "Old Blues,” some of them silverhaired, who joyfully ga/md oil to-day’s panorama of high- spirited youth and Inughting beauty, declared that they had never seen Henley open so gaily. They had flattering things to say, too, of to-day’s rowing. Their eyes shone, and they shouted, “Well rowed! -Oil! Well rowed !” like exccited schoolboys when they saw the boats shooting by the winning post.

They roared with delight when the veteran E. W. Powell (Eton Vikins), who won the Diamond Sculls as long ago as 1912, slid by the post I f lengths ahead of his young opponent L. H. Kent, of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, in the first heat of the Jight for the coveted sculls. It was the first time that tho now grey-haired Viking hud rowed for tho trophy since he captured it 14 years ago. “Wel l rowed, sir, well rowed!” his opponent gasped when they both lay on their sculls beyond tho winning post. FAIRYLAND. Evening brought its traditional Henlev evening joys—the tun fair with its roundabout and coco-nut shies wore there, so were the great company of showmen, pedlars and vendors of toomorvollous medicine. And when the sun went westering, there were idyl.ic hours on the river with soft singing and dreamy music and the twinkling lights of fairyland.