A PARTY AT THE PALACE

Waikato Times, Volume 125, Issue 20956, 8 November 1939, Page 3

A PARTY AT THE PALACE

Peep Behind the Scenes

“Roses and gladioli, I think. We can use the big green bowls for them. And I mustn’t forget to order those extra cakes and the sandwich fillings. Shall we have strawberries this time or would a nice iced fruit salad be better?” You murmur it all to yourself when you are planning your party and the Queen does just the same thing when there is to be entertaining at Buckingham Palace. She sits at her desk in her little blue and white study overlooking the wooded gardens and she jots down all the details she must discuss with her head housekeeper. Several days beforehand the Queen receives the Lord Chamberlain in her stu.dy and he gives her the list of the invitations he has sent out and they discuss the procedure for the party and decide in which of the handsome State Apartments it shall be held. Probably they choose the White Drawing-room with its antique

gilt furniture, pale satin brocades, pink Oriental carpet and its lovely full-length painting of Queen Alexandra above the marble mantelpiece. Here the guests will greet their Royal host and hostess, presently moving on to have tea in the Green Drawing-room where the Queen has had a buffet fixed up for the afternoon. Display of State Silver Etiquette calls for the priceless State silver to be on display at Court functions so the Queen orders suitable pieces to be taken out of the strong-room. There may be the exquisitely carved washing ewer that was used by Mary Queen of Scots, Queen Elizabeth’s foot-high salt cellars and the elaborately engraved bowl out of which she drank her breakfast ale every morning. All the silver will be set about the rooms and filled with the flowers on which the

Queen decides. The flowers will come up from the King’s estates, either from Windsor or Sandringham, and when the Queen has settled the menu, the produce will arrive from the same source. On the morning of the party day the Queen will walk through the State apartments watching the footmen making the final preparations. “I think we had better have some more little tables,” she may decide, and they will be brought in from the basement storerooms. The Queen assures herself that there are ample glass ash-trays—she has these because they can be so quickly cleaned again—and looks at the buffet-table arrayed with its pretty black and white party china and sees the ante-room in which the military string band will play. She approves the final musical programme arranged according to her suggestions, not forgetting the gay Viennese waltzes the King likes so much. Visit to the Kitchen Wing Then the Queen may go along to the kitchen wing of the Palace and admire the fancy gateaux and the amusing ice-cream animal shapes her cooks have made for the pivfly. At the kitchen door the Queen will be met by the chef, dark-eyed little Rene Roussin to whom she always chats in his native French. He talks to her about some new recipes and the working of the kitchen equipment. M. Roussin comes into his own glory at parties and banquets when elaborate formal menus are in order. For an afternoon reception he will devise some novel filling for the sandwiches and bridge rolls, which the Queen samples and approves as she visits him in the kitchen. Then there are always the dainties which custom has made into a positive tradition in Court entertaining. These include the celebrated spiced buns filled with raspberry jam, special nutty ices and the shortbreads made from Queen Victoria’s Balmoral recipe. Some of them find their way up to the Princesses’ suite that afternoon, as a very special treat! While their mother is moving about among her guests downstairs, two little girls are sitting down to tea at their gate-legged table and helping each other to “just the same as they’re having downstairs at the grown-up party.”