Their Majesties Were Interested

New Zealand Listener, Volume 5, Issue 122, 24 October 1941, Page 5

Their Majesties Were Interested

IFE in New Zealand held many surprises for the King and Queen, and they were quick to respond to much that was informal about our ways. In England, for the most part, tea is served on the dining table like any other meal. Or when it is served in the drawing room, a tea-table is set up. I don’t know

how the Royal Family take tea in private, I am referring to the usual English custom. I think it was at Wairakei that the King and Queen saw their first tea waggon. Tea was served in the lounge of the hotel, and a waggon loaded with cakes and sandwiches was wheeled up to their chairs. The King was very taken with it; I saw him push it back and forward. They found this

way of serving tea in New Zealand quite a novelty. And realising that domestic help was scarce, and in most houses the kitchen and dining-room® were on the same floor, often adjoining rooms, connected by a door, they decided it was an admirable idea. And also the fact that in summer so often as tea is taken out of doors, on the porch or veranda or the lawn, here again, the tea waggon took the place of a maid to ‘serve it. It was little things like that which struck them even more, I think, than many of the important sights and scenes which were on the official programme. And that is generally the case. It is the little things in which we differ in our ways of life that strike observant visitors; and these are such ordinary everyday events to us, that we would never dream of suspecting their interest, or mentioning them.("Shoes and Ships and Sealing Wax," Nelle Scanlan, 2YA, October 10.)