A London Letter

Southland Times, Issue 21100, 4 June 1930, Page 12

A London Letter

(From Our Correspondent.) Mayfair, March 27. I took with me Io yesterday’s matinee at the Chelsea Palace, a young Canadian friend who is newly arrived in England. “I’m dying to see the Queen,” she confessed. "Lots of folk at home think she is a little old-fashioned looking, but I think she looks just like the Queen of England ought to look.” When Queen Mary arrived, with Lady Ampthill and the Hon. Gerald Chichester, she certainly looked very handsome and very well, I thought. Over her midnightblue velvet gown she wore a black velvet, flared coat, with a single-skin magnificent silver fox. Her hat was of midnight-blue velvet and silver tissue and at her neck was an enormous sapphire cabochon. “This is a moment I shall never forget,” sighed my little friend who was also greatly intrigued with Lady Edmund Phipps, the Mayor of Chelsea, who received the Queen, dressed in her colourful robes of office. “It seems queer to hear a woman addressed as ‘Mayor,’ ” whispered Young Canada, irrepressibly. “Is her husband called the ‘Mayoress’7” The bright young people had certainly evolved a delicious offering in the form of Old Chelsea china tableaux. These had been very carefully arranged by Mr Ernest Thesiger and Miss Juliet Mansel. Poised against a background of black velvet, the charming groups, with their shiny faces and arms, looked like pieces of life-size china.

The audience was obviously—and audibly —delighted but when a group called “The Dancers” (a reproduction of a piece from Lord Fisher’s collection! was presented, Mrs Henry Bousfield and Mr Jack Bennett, who hail each to stand on one leg, quivered and shook and wore such strained expressions that a ripple of laughter ran over the house.

In the very smart audience I noticed Lady (Edward) Beauchamp and Mrs Tollemache, both in brown, the Dowager Marchioness of Dufferin and Ava, in a lovely ■black fur coat, and Mrs James McLean (who has riven .£lOO to help the fund along), in an exquisite green velvet ensemble with a little green hat. We take all our pleasures in a hurry nowadays, and I find some friends of mine are among forty people who will fly from Croydon to Aintree to-morrow. They leave London at nine and reach the course at noon —the first anti last three quarters of an hour being spent in coaches. Reaching the course, the Airway coaches will face the main Grand Stand. So it will be quite easy to get to the starting post and make a bet and return to the coaches in time to see the first time round and the finish. Directly the race is over the coaches start for the planes, and the race-goers ‘'will be in London in plenty of time to dress and go off to dinner at their favourite restaurant or see a show before the supper celebrations. This last fact does give the flying folk an advantage over those who go by train. Squash racquets are growing more and more popular, judging, at least, from the number of courts appearing in London now. There are two in the new’ Ladies’ Carlton Club premises, and several are to be built in the erstwhile gardens of Lansdowne House, where there is to be a swimming pool too. Perhaps sun-bathing will follow? These will belong to the Bruton Club. The ingenious argument for these things in a club formed chiefly for lovers of the drama

is that “sports and athletics are forms of artistic expression.” Meantime a grand whip-round for additional members is being made. A friend has just had a circular forwarded to her from an address of three years ago.

As all the frocks for the Cochran revue to night were not made in the same place, it is impossible to tell exactly how many yards of net are going to be worn, but it must run into a thousand or so, for fine net has taken the place of tulle in dozens of frocks—it wears better. It is not only being used for the chorus, but for some of the frocks for the principals. Bows are going to be a feature of many of the frocks. There are bows of net with long streamers on hips, and bows on shoulders. On one of Miss Ada May’s modern frocks a fichulike collar of the palest pink is fastened with a bow of blue velvet ribbon. Velvet bows especially, I may tell you, are coming in again.

That bright and appealing' little allwoman show, “Nine Till Six,” moved over to the New Theatre last night, where it is almost certain to continue its long and successful run. It it not generally known that Miss Allison Leggatt. who plays “Freda,” was quietly married last week. She has married a sailor —Lieutenant-Com-mander Shene-Clark—but unlike most sailor marriages, the position was reversed; it was Alison who had to leave her husband to return to the theatre. Mrs C. B. Cochran,

looking lovely in a white ermine coat from which her silver-blonde head rose like a flower, told me that Miss Leggatt had taken them all by surprise. “I didn’t know what, to do about a wedding gift,” she said, “until I discovered a present I had bought for somebody else’s wedding and forgotten all about it I As it is something that Alison has always very much admired, we are all happy.” Those people who believe that a group of women cannot be together for any length of time without quarrelling would have to alter their ideas if they could see the complete harmony which exists among this entirely feminine cast. There hasn’t been even- the tiniest squabble,” said Mrs Cochran, “since the show started. They all adore Miss Auriol Lee, who produced the

show for me, and she mothers them just as if they were a large family of charming I daughters.” Even the assistant stage I manager is a woman, and she, too, wishes ■ that she could always have the opportunity i of dealing exclusively with her own sex. I Perhaps some of this happiness and content must get across the footlights to the audience and has a little something to do with the success of the play.