Silkworms and Lions Rampant

New Zealand Listener, Volume 28, Issue 717, 10 April 1953, Page 20

Silkworms and Lions Rampant

WO castles in Britain-one harbouring. Silkworms and the other a not unfriendly ghost-are featured ‘in the series of pre-coronation talks, Of Kings and Queetis,at present being broadcast in the ZB Women’s Hour on Mondays. The silkworms belong to Zoe, Lady Hart. Dyke, who was the first person to cultivate them successfully ‘in Britain. In‘a talk entitled Royal Purple, Margot Campbell, author of the series, tells of Lady Hart Dyke’s development of her unique industry-to the point where she was able to supply all the silk required for. the coronation robes. The output is now about 20-lb. of raw silk a week. Lady Hart Dyke’s. business has, in fact, expanded so greatly that the worms now require ‘the whole of her ancestral home, Lullingstone Castle, and she herself lives in a cottage in the grounds. The not unfriendly ghost is the family property of the Viscountess Tarbat, wife of the chief of the Mackenzie Clan, who claims to have heard it walking the passages of her 500-year-old castle. .The ghost was, it seems, a sentry in life, for he walks a regular beat, never gives trouble to the castle’s occupants, and is by all appearances more guardian than ghoul. In addition to her ghost story, Lady Tarbat supplied Margot Campbell with the material for Lions Rampant,.a talk largely devoted to heraldry. According to Lady Tarbat, heraldry should be regarded not as an obscure survival of a past age, but as a colourful picture-language indicating something of the origin and