CHARM AND SYMPATHY

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 235, 26 May 1932, Page 7

CHARM AND SYMPATHY

QUALlTlES WHICH HAVE WON : • HEARTS FOR DUCHESS " v -r* OF' YQRK. As many of us saw the Duchess of York when she visited New Zealand, we, no doubt, ar,e .always interested to xead about this charming little lady .and her personal doings. Here is a des'cription of Her Royal Highness published recently at fiome. (In "Much. Ado About Nothing," Beatrice says, "There was a star danc'ed, and under that was I born." One fancies that a star must have danced also when Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, the future Duchess of York, was both at St. PauTs, Waldenbury; for tKe little girl that came into the world was endowed with the gifts of laughter and radience and gaiety, with ' the gift of beauty also, hut perhap's m'ost of all, with the gifts of charjn and sympathy. And her charm is of a kind that is not too illusive. She has a lovely speakipg voice and her manner is exquisite.. Simplicity is the keynote of her life Lady Elizabeth grew up livirig in very close community with nature. She would never hurt anything and sometimes a gardener would seie her talking t'enderly to a half-cfead flower, hoping it would "get hetter" and promising to come and see it next day. That was one side of her. But the little duchess-to-be had bfothers, and they taught her to climh trees and generally he a "good sport," so that she remained unspoiled and unaffected, always willing to help those in" drfficulties and to take def eats in her ehildish games with a Stoicism seldom found in a young child. From the very beginning, life was a wondprful thing to the Duchess of York. Her capacity for loving and finding delightful so many things which inost of us either pass over or ignore have given her an inner charm that is hard to define in words', hut which is a very real thing to' those who know her. There is a shyness about the Duchess which is the most disarming thing in the world, and has helped to win her such genuine popularity everywhere. When she goes over a hospital, she

will say to a patient in her soft, gentle voice. "Oh, I do hope you will get better soon," and she stretches out her hand and smiles, not at all as if she were the Duchess of York, but as someone who did not matter a bit and only hoped she were saying the right thing. Home, and all that it stands for in the best sense of the word, makes an atmosphere around the Duchess. Both her childhood homes were real homes with big fires, and heaps of laughter, and hot huttery toast on winter evenings — now 145 Piccadilly is the same. The Duchess found out very early in her life that the one way to he happy is to serve. You see, she was fourteen when the war broke out. She could not go abroad to he "fmished," as she had looked forward to doing; in fact, she was thought about very little at all. Glamis was turned into a hospital, her mother and elder sister nursed there, and Lady Elizabeth did the errands! This was the season in London and took the city spoilt when she eventually had her seoson in London and took the city by storm. Who could help loving a girl who would spy out ahy mjserable 01* lonely girl at a dance, smile at }ier, and see very promptly that she was | booked up with partners? No wonder the Duke of York f^ll in love with this young girl with the frank grey eyes, whose infectious laughter would start a whole room laughing, and would dispel from the first moment of her entry all shyness and stiffness. When, on her marriage, she entered the service of the eountry, everyone knew that her high sense of honour and her unfaltering devotion

to duty would gain her the love of the whole nation. The life of her five-year-old daughter Elizabeth is also almost the same as that of any other little girl, perhaps because the Duchess remembers her own care free childhood. The Princess takes as much pleasure in little treats and surprises as any other happy child, and when her high spirits lead her into trouble, as not infrequently happens, she is reproved by her mother as sternly as any other little mischief-maker. This charining lady is not known alT at once; the best people never are, but how well it is worth the trouble. Above all, if you met her you would think, "Here is a mother," and, Duchess or no Duchess, you would stretch out your hand and draw her into your home as, figuratively, so many women have done all over the world, and with such good reason. It is a pity that we do not hear ' more of the little personalities of royalty, for to most of us they are so overshadowe4 by conventipn that only articles such as this one helps us to see the Royal Family p,s they really are.