STORIES OF FAMOUS PEOPLE.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIII, Issue 4450, 7 August 1922, Page 1

STORIES OF FAMOUS PEOPLE.

“SMACKED” BY QUEEN VICTORIA. Sir Guy Fleetwood Wilson has lived long in the great world of the celebrated, and his charming “Letters \o Somebody’’ (Cassell and Co., 7s 6d) is packed with anecdotes. He is a modest and genial raconteur, but with it all one glimpses a strong personal-* ity and a man who knows his own mind. His book is full of gossip, but it is full also’of the intimate history of recent times, and it has the value of authentic pen-portraits of some of the most famous politicians and soldiers of the last half-century. Mrs Norton, the heroine of Meredith’s "Diana of the Crossways,” once gave him her beauty secret: "Ever since her girlhood she had, after washing her face well, passed over it a sponge dipped in quite fresh milk, into which she had squeezed a perfectly fresh lemon. She did this just before she got into bed, and she assured me that she had never applied anything else to her face and neck throughout her life. In her case, at any rate, the result was marvellous.” Forgotten Drill. His familiar glimpses are inimitable. Here is on.e of an investiture by Queen Victoria at Osborne : “We .had a very indifferent luncheon and the investiture begaii almost immediately afterwards- I was the very last, and by that time Her Magisty was evidently tired and distinctly cross. “When I knelt at. her feet I could not for the life of me avoid being completely absorbed by the pattern on the footstool., It was covered by a fearful and terrible presentment In worsted work of a King Charles spaniel, with a blindingly blue ribbon round it neck, and the most scarlet tongue ever seen in life or death. I cannot account for it, but that spaniel made me forget my drill. Instead of putting out my forearm at right angles to the Queen so that she might lay her hand on it for me to kiss I tried to take her fingers between mine to enable me to kiss the back of: her hand. The Queen instantly withdrew her hand and. gave mine a little, smack, not a. pat, but a genuine angrj' little smack. I wonder if anyone else, other than the royal children, ever got smacked by beloved Queen Victoria ; God bless her !” Kitchener. There is an excellent picture of Lo”d Kitchener during the Boer War. Sir Guy had been sent out to act as his financial jadviser, and just occasionally the two did not see .eye to eye.

“As a rule we found ourselves in entire agreement, but now and again we disagreed. On one such occasion he and I. had a serious altercation. We both lost our tempers. He stalked up and down the room on one side of his work table, railing at me in loud, angry tones, and I did the same on

the ether side of the table. ‘ while we were ‘hard at it’ Milner entered the room in that pussy-cat fashivn characteristic of him and stared at us in amazement. Kitchener spun round and said, ‘Milner, her,e we are ; three clever men .’ Am I right or is Fleetwood Wilson right ? You shall decide.’ “Milner hesitated for r, moment, and then said he thought my plan would work best. “In a moment the cloud left Kitchener’s face, and in a cheery and kindly tone he said, ‘All right, Fleetwood Wilson, go ahead. Do it your own way.” Loral Fishier aradi a Bishop. Of; Lord Fisher Sir Guy also had pleasant memories, though he admits that he had "a mania for using bad language.” “He was, I think, quite unaware of the pain he sometimes caused. On one occasion I travelled up from Southampton with Fisher. The only other occupant of the carriage was an Anglican bishop. Without the smallest provocation Fisher began to dilate on the entire lack of discipline in the Church of England and to dwell with enthusiasm on the creed of the Unitarians.. When we stopped at Basingstoke the poor bishop, although booked for London, could stand it no longer and got out. I asked Fisher what on earth he meant by being so gratuitously offensive, and the reply I got was : ‘Didn’t you see what beastly legs he had got V ”