ROUNDABOUT — Meeting People and Seeing Places with MURIEL LEWIS

Radio Record, Volume XII, Issue 36, 17 February 1939, Page 23

ROUNDABOUT — Meeting People and Seeing Places with MURIEL LEWIS

HIS is a really delightful happening. Pm to write something about the city of Wellington and its people-about those who live among us and those who pass by-for the readers of my favourite weekly paper. And to begin withthe news that we've had some summer is surely a good omen? Yes-truly. Though the people in the streets still look a little like Lambton Quay where the tramline is up-definitely dishevelled, because of an obvious indecision in the matter of suitable attire-there are more women in silks and cottons than there were a week ago, and fur-clad figures are eneountered less often, The Wellington weather makes me weep for all the pretty girls who should be walking, hatless and wnafraid, through shining summer days. And there’s one ‘thing we should never forget. Every hanging end will flutter in the wind sometime, and ruin the outline of the picture seen-and hopefully remembered-in the mirror at home. Bits and pieces should be well anchored, or carefully eschewed.

TALKING of the shortage of domestic servants-I’m sure we were? All of us talk of it some of the time, and some of us talk of it all the time. It’s an acute problem. Anyway, I met a clever and enterprising woman who, a few years ago, before I went away, was

ou the edge of a marvellous scheme for producing general servants, cooks and housemaids, at a rate that would in the end completely lift’ the depression. How had it gone? I asked her. Not at all, she said. Neither the mothers nor the. girls were interested. That same day I listened to gossip round a tea table. "And when {f was at the buicher’s SHE came in," recounted a bright young matron, "and asked for ‘half a pound of hake and a small piece of fish for the maid!" Well-we all know the people who live in a, constant state of having two maids-one going and the other

coming. And Time Marehes On. There’s something in cause and effect. te NE of the most interesting women in the Dominion at present is Mrs. ©. P. Hainsworth, wife of the very competent and energetic manager of the Centennial Exhibition. An outstanding personality, direct and fearless in her opinions, sincere and straightforward. A refreshing companion, because she knows what she thinks about things. An invaluable ally to her husband,

organising the Women’s Scction of the exhibition with quiet efficiency. This is Mrs, Hainsworth’s second visit to New Zealand, and the sixth exhibition managed by her husband at which she has held her prescnt honorary appoiniment. The others were Bradford in 1904, Edinburgh 1908, Glasgow 1911, Dunedin 1925-26, und Newcastle-on-Tyne 1929. This is surely one of the ideal companionships of which every wife dreams! We New Zealunders may take courage from the fact that these two travelled and experienced people have settled their son on a fruit farm in Otago.

¥ J CHANCED on a charming Canadian last week-Mrs. Gladys Strum, from Saskatchewan. In passing, have you ever got tied up_ over that name? I never know which is right. Mrs. Strum, however, is very right. She’s fair-her age, in that baffling CanadianAmerican manner, anything from 25 to 35; and I couldn’t very well ask her. But think what she’s done. At the last election ‘over there" she contested the Connington constituency against Premier W. J, Patterson-and took three votes to his four. She represented the Co-op. Commonwealth Federation-which is the Farmer-Labour party of Canada -and this should make her an interesting visitor to New Zealand. Her husband was reve---what we should call mayor-of their muni-

cipality; they have a daughter of eight and a lot of wheat-growing land on the edge of the arid belt which suffered so badly in the recent drought years. New Zealand, as far as she’s seen it from Auckland to Wellington in the three or four weeks since her arrival, looks good to the Canadian farmer’s wife.