LONDON LIFE

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 85, 1 December 1931, Page 2

LONDON LIFE

Gdoffrey

T.ebbutt.)

THE ECONOMY WINTER FOGS — ANCJENT AND MODERN. THE "SMART SET" AIRPORT.

(Sp'ecially Written for the "Post"

by

LONDON, Oct. 22. : Winter 's foggy breath has touched us. I suppose it will come to be , known. as "the Economy Winter.'' ' Certainly we have not had its like | since the War. One cannot read a ; social column without enc.ountering ' notiees that "owing to the national crisis," or "financial state of the country," some ball or dinner has been cancelled. Those of my friends who had become blase to the attractions of public lunching and dining are finding that there is a tremendous slump ip entertaining. These self-denying ordinances are i doubtless prompted by the best spirit, i and are carried out in a desire to fail ! in with the call for economy by the I leaders of the nation. In many cases, i the decisions to ahandon funetions are not only reasonable, but also wise. One cannot help feeling, however, thpt many . have been cancelled because of a false interpretation of economy. Every function cancelled reduc.es emplQyment and "freezes" money that would otherwise circulate. and while it is but right that the lavish entertaining of more prosperous days should be cut down, the . exact reverse of the desired result is being obtained by drastic and indiscriminate, and occasionally unnecessary reductions in expenditure by those people — there must still be some! — with money" to spend. The Fog Seaspn Arrives There are no "London particulars" or London '|pea-soupers" now, the ! veteran Cockney experts on fogs will tell you. When you blow your nose and produce a circle of black dirt on your handkerchief and tell a Londoner of the older generation that you have been out in a fog, he will proceed to decry you and ;recall the bad ' old days when steam traips ran in . the underground railways and everyone burned coal fires and lived in a fog almost perpetual from Oct.oher to February. You will helieve him (perhaps with a pinch of salt), and then, looking in a mirror and seeing black smnts on a face that an hour or so ago had been shining, come to the conclusion that the modern variety of fog is bad enough. It makes the eyes smart and the head ache, makes trains infernally late and ambulances tragically busy. Yet there is some romance in fog. Newcomers to London feel quite thrill- : ed when the first one descends on them, making a night of twenty-four . hours. It is not the invigorating mist of th§ mountains. It is clammy, smelly, dirty, and yet it has an eerie quality of fascination in the way it rolls up from the Thames an'd ! ■blankets everything, muffjing the' clang of traffic and making the most . familiar street a mysterious, unexplored region in which one gropes with a sense of adventure, wonderinj what unusual thing is going to fce unfolded as the black curtain ifts, yard by yard. It all depends on the point of view. The born Londoher regards it as a nuisauce as inevitable as the income tax; the stranger from sunnier lands does not (the first time, at anyrate) copsider it altogether distasteful; to the returning exile, waiting in the Thames estuary or outside one of the pcrts for a glimpse of his homeland ' it is n maddening act-of-God obstacle. To each man as he finds it. But don't talk about the r;mance of a fog to a rivor .p.'lot, a bargee or a 'bus-driver. Picturesmo Survival. Roli this delightful extract from the sclemn "London Gazette" around your tongue, and let your mind go tripping back through the centuries, ^ to the time when it might have refleeted the reigning monarch gorge.ously spurred courtiers with booted and spurre i eourtiers and crafty ■ secretaries with" quill pens. — At the Court at Buckingham Palr.ce, the ,th day of October, 1931. PRESENT, T'ne KINGr'3 Most Excellent Majesty. 0 Lord Presidont. Earl of Athlone. Mr. Secretary Sir Frederick Thomr.3. Ponsonby. HIS MAJESTY was this day pleased to deelare His Gonsent to a Contraet of Matrimony between Lady May Helen Em?na Cambridge, danghter of Her Royal Highness Princess Alice Mary Victoria Augusta Pauline, Countess of Athlone and the Hight Honourable Alexander Angustus Frederick William Alfred George, Earl of Athlone, and Captain Henry Abel Smith, wh'cli Consent, His Majesty has caused to be signified under the Great Seal and to be entered in the Books of the Privy Council. M. P. A. HANKEY. This pronouncement was rendered lecessary by tbe Royal Persons Mardage Act. No doubt his present Maesty, at the Council which produced t, sat comfortably in a lounge suit, nd "Mr. Secretary Thojnas" and the ithers wore nothing more inspiring

than black coats and striped trousers. Biit the official sanction is a picUiresque reminder to a workaday world of the forces of tradition, manifesjt this time in a wholly delightful form. London's "Society" Airport. There had to be some form of class distinction in flying, England being Engla'nd, and a study of Heston aerodromq, Middlesex, cannot fail to show a keen observer that Society has adopted Heston for its own. Heston, to the flying man and woman of fashion is what Henley is to the social siife* of rowing. Ascot to racing/and Lord's to cricket. * It is, like most aerodromes, inaccessible, but that is its virtue to the leisured classes who have chosen Heston as their flying headquarters. It has the smart air of a country cluh, and it blends efficiency nicely with comforf. The aerodrome hands who wheel the machines in and out of the hangars are Smartly uniformed in green overalls, and the many young women who have taken to the air with ,the game intensity that th,ey show ' in following any other new fashjon jauntily peel off helmets and flyingkit to show quite ravishing creations

■ - i i.- — « i. % « from Bond Street and the Rue de la | Paix beneath. 1 The pukka Air Force offieer with 1 whom I looked over Heston was in- | clined to snort about it, for, like most 1 of his kind, he takes a professional, 1 patronising view of the moneyed ' | amateur in aviation. He told me of | the dreadful things that wonld hap- : 1 pen to these carefr.ee amateurs were ! they to come under Service conditions, j and of the court-martial that would 1 hang over tbe head of the pilot who | let his engine run with nobody in the 1 cockpit. ] Nevertheless, Heston is a revelation of the extent to which private flying has grown in this country, and the attractions it holds out to young | men and women of leisure. There are 1 dozens of small machines "parked" W there by their owners, " many more * 1 used for training purposes, and a | Customs clearing station for mem- 1 bers of the club who drop in after 1 week'-ending on the Continent. | To see "strictly business" Croydon |j with ijbs railivay station iatmosphere B of utility, and then elegant, amusing 1 amateur, Heston is to realise the ■ spread of air-mindedness. , B