A Breath of London

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 122, 13 August 1927, Page 24

A Breath of London

Pamela Travers, THE SUN’S London correspondent, writes of the home-coming of the Duke and Duchess of York, of Lon do n theatres, .the Trooping of the Colours and Advertising. . .

KIREET me, my loves, for I have been absent from London for two whole weeks. When I returned from Ireland several ! days ago I found London strangely different. But the difference has worn off and she is the same as ever. Regent Street has been received into the fold of Important Streets by the official visit of King George and Queen Mary. I suppose I should feel that the street is in some way consecrated and strange now, but it seems just the same to me—the same hideous nouveaux riche buildings, the same jostling crowd, the same hawkers. But not the same “hawkings”—if 1 may coin a word to denote the wares of the hawkers. I notice that squeaking balloon ducks have replaced the rubber rabbits which sprang out of green rubber apples when you pressed the core. Bunting has been rainbowing our streets for the last three days in honour of the return of the Duke and Duchess of York. They arrived at 145 Piccadilly in a dismal drizzle of rain. From a perilous perch on one of the supports of the Artillery Memorial at Hyde Park Corner I saw the travellers and the small princess drive through the ducal gates. Mobs of women had gathered on the pavements and were constantly in danger of being ridden down by the mounted police. When the car rolled up there were frenzied cries of “Put your umbrellas do-ow-ow-own! ” And one white-haired Sybil laid about her with a heavy walking-stick until every black mushroom in her vicinity was ignominiously telescoped. Presently

the Duke and Duchess appeared on the balcony, the Duchess carrying a fair-haired, solemn-laced small person who gazed rather contemptuously at the frantic mob. And then the rain being even more dismal than usual, the three disappeared inside, and & scarlet-coated footman —himself by far the most gorgeous thing in the whole proceeding, shut the. windows and pulled down the blinds. The mushrooms went up again and the crowd, evidently imagining themselves bees about a hive, fought for places in the buses and went home. And behind the drawn blinds the fat, wise baby was, very probably, showing her astonished and adoring parents how much she knew about the “Little Pig that Went to Market,” and the “Other That Stayed at Home.” I have news from the sporting world —a firmament in whose lanes I have not strayed very far. A young woman called Betty Nuthall has put a spoke or two in the wheel of the Lenglen. I understand that they have never met on any court, these two—l am speaking of tennis, by the way—but Betty has suddenly planted herself in the rich but malleable soil of the public affection. Every paper one picks up has her photograph plastered across it. Leader writers have conferences on the question of her becoming a professional player. Editors run miles for a glimpse of her and the Greathearted British Public gallops panting with its tongue out to Wimbledon. Even some of my own occasional friends greeted me with the news on my return from Ireland—news which had not the slightest interest for me. But I am planning a beautiful revenge. To the next person who gives me a summary of the position of the sporting world, and excludes, as these people always do, any mention of any other subject, I am going to discourse widely and pedantically and unceasingly on literary and artistic matters. When I am told that Agnes Wilkins slashed a brilliant back-hander into the goal at the first over I shall retort with “Of man’s first disobedience ana the fruit,” or “Let me not to the marriage of true minds,” or “Up the Airj' Mountains.” I have been too kind in the past. My future will not be so soft-hearted. For tennis balls I will give metaphors, for cricket bats, amazing iambic pentameters and woe on double woe to the boxing enthusiast. He will know a great deal about the Intimations of imortality before I have done with him. Oh. revenge, you are as sweet and succulent as a ripe guava plucked at Tamaki.

| And I have just read another book j that has stirred me—Sir Jagadis Bose’s “Plant Autographs.” Did you know that it was possible to make a carrot drunk? Oh, but it is. And parsley is most susceptible to emotion —a very highly-strung plant. I would love to hear what a rose had to say when under the influence of alcoholsuch tender, pretty, passionate things, I think. And a cabbage—a cabbage would be full of good-natured remarks, capable, motherly advice, and instructions on how to use up scraps. The cabbage is, I am sure, a dear housewifely matron. I should like a cabbage to tuck me into bed. My days have not stood still since I returned from Ireland. I have been again to “Turandot,” and to the Stravinsky night at the Russian Ballet and to Marie Tempest’s new production, “A Spot on the Sun.” I have seen, too, the gigantic new revue “White Birds,” and I am still wondering why it was produced. Like a tailor cutting out a useless, ill-shapen pair of trousers from the most expensive tweed, the producer has hacked a dull, glum, stolid hunk of tameness from tlie cream of revue artists. There was Maurice Chevalier, brought especially from Paris to sing in London. Pie was good, but not so good as he is in Paris, for the surrounding greyness damped his blithe spirit. There was Maisie Gay, usually perfect, but now a little overwrought by the congealed spotted-dog of the production. Even Jose Collins, inured to ail sorts of plays and audiences, had to have a breakdown and leave the stage. I thought it was a good and sensible gesture. Anton Dolin danced well, so did the chorus, but there was no joy in them. Ana the sketches! They must all have been written on a cold November morning when the authors were sitting on the Embankment in a shower of sleet, without an umbrella between them. As I was going out of the theatre somebody murmured to me in an awed voice that “White Birds” had cost £27,000. I told him I thought it very dear. Since I wrote to you King George has had a birthday. Flags flew from every conceivable point and clapped together in the wind, guns spoke with booming voices all through the day, and I hear that postmen had to go in relays to the Palace. The King celebrated his birthday by taking the salute at the Trooping of the Colours

the next day. I have seen the colours trooped many times and every time I unexpectedly get that first, old thrill . . . the thunder of drums like a dark velvet background for the blaze of pipes and bugles, the marching men, the silken standards with their fine blazonry of battle-honours. The Colours overshadow and wind about the pikes, but it is the pikes themselves that are so battle-scarred and noble. The Colours are but silk—silk that fades and falls into tatters, but the pikes are made of English oak that is longer lasting. The colour pikes of the Northamptons are still those of 1881 when the regiment carried the Colours into action for the last time. I think that in times of war the Colours must strain at their moorings with eagerness to march at the head of the Army again. At Bergen the Colours of the Royal Sussex Regiment were saved by a lieutenant who wrapped the silk about his body and fought three Frenchmen singlehanded, using the Colour pike as a quarter-staff.

I learn that Fate has designed for me a chair at to-morrow’s Advertising Convention. But Fate is a lady in whom I have never believed and my little seat —or rather chair —will be empty. The knowledge that 25,000 business men are to be present does not quicken my pulse—rather does it send a cold chill through my veins. I cannot listen long to the unsophisticated idealism that cloys the speeches of tender business men. My little mundane mind cannot come up to these airy heights where the spatted feet stride up and down supporting bulky and very curved pillars of propriety, and where saws such as “Your true business man’s a boy arid a poet at heart, a mystic, a kind of visionary” fly about like gaily tinted butterflies. Other fine and splendid things are said about business men and I dare say I should feel my faith invigorated and renewed if I were to hear such stirring phrases as: “Ram home the goods.” “Big Thought means Big Money.” “Advertising is the poetry of modern life.” Yet something tells me that I will not go. I shall buy a new dress instead—one of those leopard skin things that are so fashionable just now. It takes two to make a dress—a leopard in front and a leopard at the back and a rose ou the shoulder. What could possibly be cbic-er—-hub?