London Gossip

Southland Times, Issue 20081, 19 January 1927, Page 11

London Gossip

(From Our Correspondent.)

London, November 22. It comes as a surprise to see how ‘grown-up” is Princess Mary s elder son,

George Lascelles. Ambrose McEvoy’s portrait of him at the Royal Society of Portrait Painters at Burlington House shows a tall, slim little boy, instead of the sturdy baby in crawlers of whom we have been accustomed to think.

The costume of the new portrait—plain white knickers and a frilled white silk blouse, white socks and black patent shoes—will certainly become the standard “best” suit for all the little boys of his age.

The Queen of Spain was thoroughly enjoying “Ask Beccles” at the Globe Theatre, where I saw her in a box. The Spanish Ambassador was in a stall, and afterwards, in the lobby, the Queen had an animated discussion with him about the play. They talked in French, which Queen Victoria speaks fluently. The Duchess of San Carlos, a disting-uished-looking grey-haired woman, the Queen's Mistress of the Robes, and the Marquis de Bendana, her Chamberlain, accompanied the Queen.

Lady Carisbrooke. who has been going about so much with Queen Victoria, told me that the ball which she is arranging next month for the Regimental Agency is to be 3 very brilliant affair. The pipers of the Kings Own Scottish Borderers are coming specially to pipe us into supper, and Nell St. John Montague, the society clairvoyante, is arranging to do some very special crystal gazing. Margaret Morris is giving a demonstration this evening at her Theatre School of the wonderful remedial dance work which is taking up a good deal of her energy at present. The famous dance teacher, when I met her yesterday, told me that she is now holding classes at “Bart.’s,” St. Thomas’s, the Royal Hospital for Children, and other hospitals, though she only fcegan putting to practical use the idea of helping crippled and deformed children to use their limbs, by means of dancing, a year ago. “I started holding dancing classes for the girls at the Chailey Heritage School for Cripples,” Miss Morris told me. “After seven lessons the children had improved so much that they gave me the boys as well, and now I have a class of over a hundred.” Orthopaedists and medical men are taking great interest in the work. Not long ago a hundred doctors made an all-night journey from Wales to see the classes at Chailey. A number of leading medical men will be present at to-night’s demonstration, when some practical results will be given by Miss Morris’s pupils. Looking in at the private house-warming of Boulestin's new restaurant in Southampton street, I was amused to find all sorts of famous people dancing to the strains of a hurdy-gurdy. Hidden behind

one of the amusing decorative panels by Allen Walton, its even tone was a welcome change after the usual jazz bands. Half Bloomsbury and Chelsea were there. I noticed Clive Bell, Willy Walton, Dick Wyndham, Mrs St. John Hutchinson, and Mrs Eugene Goossens, the last-named with an even closer cropped shingle than she had in the summer.

Although dancing was the principal form of entertainment at Boulestin’s party, the food was the subject of considerable interest. Everyone was speculating concerning new dishes that would be invented for our b upper.

One new thing was that instead of a savoury there were uncommon cheese sandwiches. Made of cream cheese, between slices of thin brown bread, these were extremely simple, but very good. It is an idea that will appeal to many dance hostesses this winter.

Oilcloth curtains are the latest craze, and scarlet oilcloth is the most fashionable of ail. A well-known actress has them in her flat, and other well-known women are adopting this surprisingly practical mode. 1 suppose these new curtains are really an outcome of the fashion for covering chairs and sofa with oilcloth. Launched by Lord Lathom’s shop in Davies street a few months ago, the idea proved such a success that it has been extended to curtains, tablecloths, lampshades and all sorts of other unlikely objects, and after being successfully “tried out” on the stage is now being adopted in everyday homes.