STRANGE ASCOT SCENE

Hokitika Guardian, 7 October 1931, Page 5

STRANGE ASCOT SCENE

IN ROYAL ENCLOSURE. PHANTOM PROCESSION. Queer things happened at Acot a few weeks ago. Beautiful women strolled up and down the Royal enclosure oceompanied by faultlcsly dressed young men. They looked just the same us the exclusive crowds who pace the sacred lawns on the occasion of race meetings. Suddenly the men lifted their tops hats and cheered, and the women bent low in graceful curtsies. But the course was empty. There was no panoply of carriages and scarlet-coated outriders. It was a phantom Royal procession. The scene became even more startling. The men sut on the grass with their fair companions and ate thick beef sandwiches. Where was the salmon, the chicken and the champagne ? ! Tattersall’s was empty, and a policeman reclined in an easy chair in the paddock. He was asleep, and his helmet was on his knee. The footmen on duty at the Royal enclosure were wearing wrong liveries. A man with ja megaphone and an American accent called out, “Are these men at the O.K.H” “O.’K. sir,” came the reply from one who appeared to be his assistant.

The sun burst through the clouds. “Come on, boys,” cried the megaphone man ; let’s catch this bit of suulight.” Once again pretty women and handsome men walked through to the gate of the Royal enclosure and welcomed a phantom monarch. Then they relapsed. They had shot a few more feet of the film “The Calender,”, the Edgar Wallace racing drame. A man with a bag nicked up fragments of paper. “T wish they’d tell these people not to make such a mess,” he muttered. It \vas certainly the strangest “race meeting” that has ever been held at Ascot.