1940-05-23 — Page 13

Thursday,

HONGKONG TELEGRAPH.

May 23, 1940.

Liberty

MAGAZINE PAGE.

Correspondent's

NoteBook

By BARBARA STUART

Here is a letter from a London woman to a friend abroad. It gives a vivid picture of life in war-time Britain-as seen through a wo man's eyes.

London, May 1. My dear Conchito,-To every- one's great delight, "daylight saving" has begun a good many weeks earlier than usual this year, In order to shorten the "black-out" perlod as much as possible.

"Daylight saving" means, as you doubtless know, that we put our clocks forward one hour so as to give ourselves an extra hour of daylight in the evening.

Always of grent bencft fo workers during the period of sum- mer, you can perhaps tenogino what this arrangement means to all of

# now? For nearly four months we have crept home in the even- ings through dark streets, have closed up our houses like prisons from five o'clock in the afternoon until the next morning, und hustled through our shopping so as to-reach- home before the darkness falls.

Now all that la over! It light now until seven o'clock, and with every week that passes, black-out" time will come later still. People can get home from their work in daylight now! some even have a chance to walk for a while in one of the Parks after their day's work and before it grows dark.. No more will the leaving of one's torch at home appear in the light of a major disaster, nor shall we worry if the shops declare that their stock of torch batteries is exhausted! ·

Quite apart from its convenience and pleasantness, this new measure will be of the greatest assistance to shop-keepers everywhere, giving "them an extra hour in which to sell their goods, unitampered by light- ing restrictions, at a time when most people are free to buy.

I took advantage of the first ex- tra hour of daylight to prolong a Walk over Hunipstead Heal, place which I find beautiful at any ime of the year and where the nir is so fresh and clear that onr -can-hardly-belleve oneself to-be still on the northern outskirts of London.

I was amazed to find how muny clusters of "allatments" had been started in various parts of the Heath.

Allotment" is the name given to a small plot of land which is leased to a private individual by the owners, (in this case the London County Counell), on which he can make his own small garden for vegetables and flowers,

At the present time these allot- ments will, I imagine, be devoted entirely to vegetables and, perhaps, fruit bushes, since the Govern ment's idea is that, wherever posal- ble, everyone shall grow food of this kind for the use of himself and his family.

Most of the workers appeared to be mlúdle-aged or elderly men, and these inboured slowly, solemnly and with great concentration, speaking seldom, but wearing an air of absorbed content.

I believe that, quite apart from their original purpose of produc- ing more food, these allotments will have a great effect for good upon the health and happiness of their owners.

After my walk, I went to a cine- ma to see one of the many excellent French films which are becoming increasingly popular in London

now.

I also saw a very good news-reel of the march through Londen of the crows of the British warships Ajax and Exeter on their way be entertained at the Guildhall where n

banquet was given to honour their glorious victory, with the Achilles, over the German bat- Lleship "Admiral Graf Spee."

You, of course, will have seen this news-reel alto, and will re- member how it and happy they all looked and what a tremendous welcome they received from the enormous and wildly enthusiastla crowd lining the route!..

I have just read an account of how the officers and crows of both ships have experienced the amusing and thruling experience of becom ing genuine film

starat

•

•

fused point blank to allow this un- less exactly the same amount of film should be shot on board the Exeter as well. This condition. was no- copied and filming arranged accord- ingly,

How the sailors must have en- joyed themselves, and apparently they all put up a most excellent per- formance! I hope we shall all have the pleasure of seckig this film shortly.

With love to you and your family

Your affectionate

from

Tran

GRIN AND BEAR IT By Lichty

11-30

"Another plan? I've given you five military secrets already, Nadya-what in the world do you do with them?”

ANY WOMAN

CAN SEW

By Rajcane Reynolds Olmstead

-THIS-may sound like a sweeping" statement but it's a true one: any woman can sew. And that means you. My own experience proves It didn't know what the word "Basting" meust when I started out to make my first dress. Yet that dress was a success and ail the clothes I've made since-pa- jamus for my husband,

more dresses, a suit and a coat for my- self-have turned out equally well.

The way I began was sudden and unexpected. You see from child- hood my mother had always made my clothes. Then after I married there canie

time when the future caught up with my wardrobe and left it far behind, What was I to do? There

A no mother to remedy the situation and I couldn' afford to buy the fabrics and styles I was accustomed to in ready-made dresses,

Before I realised what had hap- pened I found myself wandering through the fabric section of one of London's leading department stores. A slate blue alpaca caught my eye and I bought four yards, Guided by Inte I selected a pat tern. Not till I reached home did I realise these two appalling facts: I didn't know how to sew and I had no tools with which to begin.

Here again fate took a hand in my sartorial problem-this time via my husband. I exhibited. my pur- chases 10 him-dubiously. He stared in amazement. Then he dis- appeared. The next morning sewing machine arrived. That was his way of showing that he ap- proved of my breaking out with ́a sewing Kern,

Well, I made the dress and it was a proud day in our household when it was pronounced a good job. I'm not going to pretend, however, that I didn't tear my hair in despair aver it many times, I did. I sailed inlo a lot of difficulties. And most of I realise now after eleven them, months' experience, could have been avoided if only I had known a few simple rules. Here are the things I'd do to-day-If I were starting that firal dress:

บ

Good Rules for a First Dress 1. I'd get a beginner's pattern and get it first before I bought my material. A paitern that's easy-to- put together makes your first steps ¦ so much simplor. And it is always. Important to get the pattern first because that gives you the key to the kind of material most suitable for the design; also the number of yards required.

arm myself with a beginner's sew- ing book to serve as a kind of die- tionary whenever I ran across a sewing term 1 didn't know.

4. I'd pin the paper · pattera pieces together and try them on be- fore I laid them on the material for cuiting. This is for a perfect fit and you'll find directions for any simple alterations you may have to make in your Instruction.

-6.—I'd-fdentify each pattern plece according to the diagram on the Instruction sheet and write its name on the upper side. Then I'd check cach plece to make sure that the perforations marking the straight of the goods are true. If they are not it is easy to draw a line through the perforations and measure them to make the line straight.

6. I'd press both the paper pieces and the material before cutting. A wrinkle saved here will mean o helter cut dress.

7. I'd write (more writing!) the nume of each piece on the wrong side of the material with chalk before divorcing it from the tissue paper. This is a great help in ps- sembling the dress.

8. I'd try on the dress after the pleces are pasted together. Should any adjustment need to be made, now is the time.

9. I'd press each seum open after it was sewn. Pressing all along the way is vitally important for a

smooth ft.

18. I wouldn't economise on tools any more than I could help. If you are really serious about making your own clothes a well-equipped ewing-room is half the battle. in helping you achieve that profes- laken care of in the money you sional touch. And the cost is soon save over buying the same type of clothes ready-made.

Right now I'm setting aside a certain part of my budget for a number of tools that I crave-all designed to make sewing at home as simple as ABC. I'd like a dressmaker's dummy-it would make Atting so much more accurate. I want pinking shears-to- savo Limo in finishing the edges of scama. And most particularly I want to add to my stock of sewing-machine attachments.

+

A-Sewing-Club-js-Fum:

There's one good sewing rule for beginners that I've left to the last. is the idea of a number of you getting together and taking ! your first steps in a group. I never thought of this until my friends bd- A British company is malting a

2. I'd choose material with gan to ask how I did this and that film of the whole story of the River body. You'll find a firmly woven and before we knew it we Plate battle, and the men of the fabric, whether it's wool, rayon.

furmed a club. We did not "begin Ajax and Exeter, acleď all over cotton or slik, much easier to handlo with dresses at first. Each member again, in front of the cameras, the than a flimsy one. Also I'd leave brought a garment that needed parts they had actually played in definite up-and-down patterns to special attention. But soon pate the historic action against the Graf

more experienced. A ship terms and materials for simple Spee. It appears that the flim

floating upside down is an oddity, housedresses and aprons began to director, armed with an Admiralty I learned this the hard way. Need appear. And in the course of mak- permit, frat appronched · the cop I say more?

ing these easy things many pro- tain of the Ajpx. for, pernisalon, to 3.I'd read and regend the direcblems were solved for the benent shoot the dim conceboard lions-in-the-pallern-envelope be-of-all-This is the advantage of anip. The captain, however, res" fore I took a single step. And I'd sewing togeher. And it's func

the

AUSPICE BRITANNIA UBER

SIERRA LEONE

THE arms of Sierra Leone were assigned by Royal Warrant in 1014. They show the flag of the Union as it was before 1801-with the crosses of St. George and St. Andrew only. A freed slave; bearing a spent, waves to a slip on the horizon. A green palm tree flourishes against a gold background,

Bletra Leone, on the west coast of Africa, is a Crown Colony, possessing a Registative council partly elected and partly nominated by the Crown, with full power to teristato for a Protectorate as well as the Colony.

The capital is Freetown, and the population (including that of the Protectorate) is estimated at 1,770,- 000,

DID YOU

WONDER?

How the Suit's "Rays' Reach Us Without Warming. The Intervening Spaco?

The sun is a globular mass of glowing gases whose surface area la 12,000 times that of the earth. The sun's surface has an catlmoted temperature of about Fahrenheit,

10,000!

earth

It taltos about eight minutes for a radiation pulse de wave, traveling at 186,000 miles per second, to roach the earth from the sun .*

However, high mountain penis while nearer the sun, are notori- ously cold, and stratosphere bal- toonists tell us that the tempera-. ture several miles above the earth Is still colder.

Before we attempt to see why, if the sun warms the earth, it does not also warm the upper-ntmos- phere and interstellar space, let us first note that there are three ways in which heat may travel. The three ways are: (1) by conduction, the hent being transmitted from.. warmer to colder parts of an ob- ject or from a warm object to a colder object in contact with it; (2) by convection, the heat being trans- ferred by actual moveinent of a gas or liquid in convcellon currents; and (3) by radiation, pulses or waves, similar to waves of light, which travel in straight lines and at the speed of light about 106,000 miles a second.

The sun's heat reaches us only by radiation. It cannot reach us by conduction, for there is no solid substance between the earth and the sun along which the heat can be conducted-And-there-are-no sun-to-earth movements of any gas or liquid to bring us the sun's heat by convection.

of

Radiation waves are not them- selves hot, but have the capacity

raising the temperature of ob Jects which absorb them and of passing through substances trans- parent to them without raising the

their temperature. Atmospheric air ab- sorbs but less than 1-10 of 1 per cent of the radiation that passes through It coming from the sun, and is consequently very little warmed by the sun's rays,.

With tle or nothing to absorb heat and be warmed, the sun's rays -do-not raise the temperature of the intervening space between the sun and the earth to any extent.

GERMAN PLAN OF 1917

TOINVADE SWITZERLAND

MILES

20+

20.

...C..

Geneva

Belfort

ERMANY

Gake of

Neuchatel

WITZERLAND

Lake of Geneva

ls reported that the Swis High Command have obtained plana showing that Hitler intends to invade Switzerland. Such a plan is certainly-rendy-for use, il-

of

Tät Germans' prepared a cam- paign of

of this kind in 1917. Two columns were i provide the

strik- Ing force. The northern column, advancing from Basle, was to move down the river valley the Doubs curving in to the rear of Lho Belfort By this means French fine would be turned.

The Southern 'column was to march from near; the shore of Lake Constance, along the river valley of the Aar and behind the screen of the Jars', mountains. By Lake Neuchatel this forÓD WAR

to divide. The first part would' then cross the pass to Pontarllen and, leaving a "Harrison" "to" "ERIK" "the northern "expedition, would

R. Rhône

ITALY

of

drive, southward towards Lyons. The second" pari-wa to burst. Leron the French frontier at Geneva, and advance down the -Rhone-valley-towards-Marscilics:

IN. 1917 Italy was

was the Alls France, The plan of those days was designed to sever communi- cations between these two cogn= tries. To-day the Halfans main- fain a state of malevolett neuten- lity towards the French he German Plan of 1940

is designed to, Joti, German and Italian forces. All the very worst Biller

(Hitler counts on having a friendly Italy on the flank of his lovading army.

It must be remembered that in

Switzerland. land of federaled republics with a population of 4,250,000, there are 3,000,000 German-speaking Swios. i would be surprising or Be Nail Kympa «illsers were among them.

Ready for your selection

NEW CONSIGNMENT OF

Ferguson Fabrics

38" VOILES

$1.95 and $2.50 per yd.

'Lovely new designs and. colourings, including navy and white.

FERGUSON'S

CARLSHAN

(Linen Finish)·

NEW PIN STRIPES in two shades Powder Blus and Navy Blue.

$2.50

FLAIR

per yd.

FABRICS

FLORAL, CREASE-RESISTING

+ $1.75 yd.

GAY COTTONS

$1.50 yd.

Whiteaway, Laidlaw & Co., Ltd.

HIS MASTER'S VOICE

A VARIETY PROGRAMME

Baschinka, Potpourri of Russian songs...Marek Weber & Orch. .Andre Kostalanctz and Orch,

Chast of the Weed

Rumba Fantasy

New Moon. Vocal gems.

I'm falling in love with someone,

- Sweethearts...Walix.

Comes live

C2100

C2700

€2808

B8000

138002

.'

My heart keeps crying.

Wartime March Medley

02874

Poet and Peasant...Overture

€2706

C2835

C2814

02707

18901

Songs that everyone should know Gertrude Lawrence...Medley, Neapoliton Nights,

Kipling's Barráék-room Ballads C2806-7 Rhapsody in Blue

DA1559 Will you remeber. Maytime"

✔

Farewell to dreams

Light Opera Company. ..Allen Jones,

Dorothy Lamour,

.Coldstream Guards Band. ..Boston Promenade Orch.

...Stuart Robertson. ..Gertrude Lawrence. Lights Opera Company, .......Peter Dawson. ..Boston Orchestra. Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy.

TSANG FOOK PIANO COMPANY

Marina House.

19, Queen's Road C.

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Phone 24648

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Last Week In June"

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Last Week In June

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