AUNT DAISY brings you the WEEKLY CHEER BUDGET

Radio Record, Volume XII, Issue 27, 16 December 1938, Page 23

AUNT DAISY brings you the WEEKLY CHEER BUDGET

"AT THE SCENE OF THE TRAGEDY

OF LOVELY MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS

EELING very fresh and | strong after. our tea im. Edinburgh Castle, we eame out into the decided"Ay cold breeze, and spent an in- . ‘teresting h a1 f-hour walking round the exterior of the War Memorial, studying its symbolic | decorations, and wondering anew at the multiplicity of ideas and thoughts embodied in that grand and rugged structure. We were shown, too, the "Half Moon Battery" from which the’ famous "one o’clock gun" is fired every day--by an electric switch operated at Greenwich! And 1 must not forget to mention the statue of Earl Haig, on horseback, considered to be one of the finest equestrian statues in the world, which stands nearby; and oh!-the wonderful view from the Castle hill! The Royal. Mile But it was getting late, and we had to hurry to the Palace of Holyrood, before it should be closed for the day. So we found the car, and bowled along ‘‘The Royal Mile,’’ past the prison, and the house where John Knox once lived. — Once, when an American tourist was being driven along this route, he said to the driver, who had pointed out this house, "Well, who WAS John Knox, anyway?" "Eh, mon, d’ye no ken wha John Knox was?" floundered. the driver, "do ye no read your Bible?" Holyrood _ House, though so beautiful, seemed to me stern and rather forbidding; and | could imagine the gay and plea-sure-loving spirit of Mary Queen of Scots being gradually subdued by its unyielding and uncompromising atmosphere, Once inside the "Place," as the great old fore-court is called, and with those big gates closed, Mary must have felt imprisoned. The first object which catches one’s eye is the great fountain, a beautiful thing, though only built in 1859, but a copy of the- much older one in Linlithgow Palace, which. we were taken to see on our last day in Edinburgh, on our way to Alloa. At The Fountain On the upper part of the fountain is an imperial crown, supported by four Yeomen of the Guard;. the. middle part is very wonderfully grnamented with carving, and the water gushes out of lions’ mouths, in the lower part of the structure, falling into basins below. We went into the great quadrangle, which is over 90 feet square, passing under the beautiful entrance arch, with great pillars on each side ef ‘it, the Royal coat-of-arms carved ahove it, and the whole surmounted by another imperial crown, under which is a clock. Then we had to hurry. through the historical apartments, because the attendants were beginning to

close up for the night; but-I would have loved to linger and muse awhile among the many rooms and pictures and interesting relics. There was the long picture gallery which contains. the pictures of one hundred Scottish kings, the majority of whom can never have existed, as the guide explained, but which were painted under a contract by which the artist was bound to — "furnish portraits of all the kings who have reigned over Scotland from King Fergus, the first king, to King Charles II _ inclusive, being in all one hundred and ‘ten." There is a catalogue, but many of the likenesses . and names are fictitious, we were told. ‘ Her Private Stair, © We saw Lord Darnley’s rooms, with wonderful tapestries on the walls, and..a, great eanopied bed with velvet curtains and an embroidered coverlet; and we came to Queen Mary’s audience chamber by way of her private stair-very narrow and built in the ,thickness of the wall, which is over seven fect through. . The ceiling of this chamber is its special feature, for the design of the ‘sixteen panels is.so intricate and detailed that, to a student of Scottish history, it expresses al‘most. everything there is to know about the house of Stuart and the French allianee! We looked with interest at the queen’s harpsichord, decorated with paintings of peacocks and ducks and roosters; and at her harp. and her Stool: and then, at ane end, at 2 brass plate let into the floor to mark the place where David Riccio was murdered. Tt is said that the original bleodstain on the floor was hacked away Jong ago by the knives of unscrupulous euriosity hunters!

1 was rather morbidly . fascinated to hear that, when Mary appeared to be going to cry for. help, when Ruthven returned to her supper-room after helping in this murder, one of the Scottish gentlemen declared he would "cut her -into collops if she stirred!" COLLOPS! Oh, dear! i:went for a drive around ‘"‘Arthur’s Seat’’ after this, to cheer us up; and in the evening, after the theatre, we saw. an unforgettable sight‘Edinburgh Castle floodlit-a veritable fairy palace, for the lighting is so arranged that no hill ean be seen-just the glorious ‘‘eastle in the air,’’ every detail standing out in the soft white radiance. I shel never forget it. Next day, our ‘griends called tor us quite early, and away we went te see the "Scott Country." What ‘memories that will conjure up to all the Scottish folk who read this! .There is no’ finer scenery in’ the world than ‘that we saw on that drive; although we have much in New Zealand ‘that can rank équal with it, as those ‘gentlemen will see when they come out here next year for our Centennial celebrations. Mary‘s Tree We drove through the district called "Little France’ and saw "Mary’s Tree;’ now dead, and to be replaced by one to be pianted by Queen Elizabeth this year. All the fields were golden with ripe barley, and looked beautiful, We passed’ the Duke of: Bue--eleuch’s estate, and Dulkeith Palace and village;*New Battie Abbey, the home made by the monks who had

come there from Melrose; and Sontra Hill. We were right on the moors now, and often we saw "snow posts" put there to show the road when the snow has plotted it out. ~ NEAR Moffatt, we were shown the ‘‘Devil’s Beef Tub,’’ a deep valley well enclosed by hills, where the raiders used .to hide the cattle they had stolen. By lunch time we were at Drypurgh Abbey, and before wandering through those beautiful ruins, we had lunch at the Dalmahoy Golf Club, formerly the mansion house of the Earls of Morton-a magnificent home built in 1725, as the date on the lintel of the door testifies. I like to remember that I had tea one day at Edinburgh Castle, and lunch next day at the mansion house of Dalmahoy! ‘It has not been altered at all, really-there are the old stone hall and the great high-ceilinged rooms, with the old portraits still hanging on the walls. The kitchen, however, is equipped with all.modern appliances for feeding the numerous members of the very exclusive golf club. It has one of those new stoves (with two enormous ovens), which are. fed mostly with coke, and. which need only about two scuttlefuls of fnel a day, being worked on some automatic air-controlled design. I saw one of these in a big restaurant in Napier, Hawke’s Bay. The golf course is considered very good, and well up to open championship standard. Famous playérs, and even champions, of both sides of the Atlantic, have played in exhibition. matches at Dalmahoy, but none of them ‘has ever succeeded in making it look easy! The first five’ holes average more than 450 yards in length, and it starts off with the longest

hole of all, which measures over five hundred yards-and uphill at that Golf At Dalmahoy D&YBURGH Abbey is. very lovely, and we spent a time there, trying to reconstruct mentally the whole building. We wandered through the choir and the transepts, the chapels and the cloisters; we paused in the ‘‘warming-room’’ — t h e chamber in which the canons were allowed the comfort of a fire; and in the frater or reiectory, with the remains of a dais, where the high table stood at. the east end; and close to it, a pulpit, for the ‘‘reader"’ at mealtimes! No pleasant tabletalk allowed there! We peered into the cellars; and outside, we looked at the eleven cedars of Lebanon, beautiful old trees, brought hore from the Holy Land by the Crusaders. There are firs and ecypresses, too, besides ‘many spreading English trees; and in the spring, the fields are glorious with snowdrops and daffodils. At Dryburgh, too, are the burial vaults to which pilgrims fram all parts of the British Empire come to do homage, for Sir- Walter Scott lies in the north transept, and close by is the family vault of the Haigs of Bemersyde, and here Sir Douglas Haig is buried. ; He Trusted. In God On fFarl Haig’s grave is the inscription-"Born. in Bdinburgh 1861. Departed 1928. He trusted in God, and tried to do the right." — Next week, we shall continue on our way, through Melrose, to Abbotsford. 7