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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Seaforth News, 1953-07-16, Page 7I The Case Of The Sick Lady -in -Waiting Of all the scandals that have plagued the Royal Family from time to time, none has been stranger than the affair of the "naughty" lady-in-waiting. In 1939, the lovely Lady Flora Hastings, eldest daughter of the Marquess of Hastings, returned to Buckingham Palace from a holt- day feeling none the better for The change. On the contrary, she noticed a constant nagging pain in her side and found she, could scarcely buckle her waistbelt, so greatly Was her stomach distended, To her uncle she wrote with light heart of these "agreeable accom- paniments," of "bilious derange- ment" . but she quietly de termined to consult Sir James • Clark, the Court physician, He looked grave and, indeed, el little startled as he bent over Lady Flora, "He either did not pay much attention to my ail- ments or did not quite under- etand them," she wrote after- wards, Malicious Gossip "You are thirty-three year's of age?" he murmured, "You are— ahem—unmarried?" Lady Flora told him this was so. Sir James prescribed medi- eine but said little more, He has however privately come to the conclusion that his patient was an expectant mother, though he did not tell her as much. Instead with deplorable lack of medical etiquette, he mentioned his sus- picions to one of the Ladies of •the Bedchamber: Unwittingly, the innocent Lady .Flora had made herself a shock - Centre for all the conspiring ri- valries that circled about the Queenundercurrents that had reduced the Royal Household, in the words •of a candid male cour- tier, to "a nest of spitting cats,' Nineteen -year-old Victoria had about her at that time eight La- dies of the Bedchamber, eight Women of the Bedchamber and eight Maids of Honour, whose rota duty it was to attend the Queen, sit near her at meals and ;help to amuse her. They were :mostly so pretty that they were Closet — Just to be sure, this ';edge uses o magnifying glass to check scores in the three - cloy shuffleboard competition. always keying to ge t ncarried, 0 continuous sour.'(of annoy ince to the Queen, Nothing to Confess Moreover, the Ladies of the 1Sedcltamber were at that time a political appointment, a point of sore indignation to the Queen• who did not relish changing her companions with every Cabinet change in Downing Street. Lady Flora was lady-in-waiting to the Queen's mother, the Duchess of Kent, with whom the self-willed Victoria was often at odds. Thus, most of the Queen's ladies and the unlucky Flora were in oppo site camps. Swiftly Mlle tittle-tattle ran round from Lady Portman to Lady Tavistock, till finally it reached the ears al' the Queen herself, Here was scandal'incleed —the possibility of an unmarrie8 mother at Court. Unluckily, the Queen hersell. youthful and inexperienced, seemed all too willing to lend• credence to the tale. Perhaps it gave her an opportunity of scor- ing off dear Mama. At all costs the wicked Lady Flora would have to be sacked, though her dismissal presented awkward po litical implications. "But perhaps she is married in secret?" an adviser suggested. This was indeed a possibility. Sir James Clark himself was at. once sent to Lady Flora to dis- cover the truth. We can imagine her astonishment as she listened to the suggestion that she was perhaps privately married or at least ought to be. The doctor exhorted her to confess as the only means 01 sav- ing her character. Lady Flora denied that there was anything to confess, The truth was that, thanks to glasses of porter and open-air walks, her health was improved and the troublesome swelling subsided, Palace in Uproar But by now Buckingham Pal- ace was in an uproar. The Queen decided that Lady Flora could not be permitted to continue het duties until she submitted to a medical examination. The Duchess of Kent and Flora's friends re- garded this as an insult. Disas- trously, however, the news of the affair spread far beyond the Pal- ace confines, Soon the whole country was arguing whether Lady Flora was guilty or not. To remove the stigma from her name, Flora had no choice. "I felt it right," she wrote to her family, "that a point-blank re- futation should be instantly giv- en to the lie and I submitted myself to the most rigid examin- ation." Within the hour she had the satisfaction of possessing a eer- tificate, signed by her accuser, Sir James Clark, and also by Sir Charles Clark, stating that "there are no grounds for believing pregnancy does exist, or ever has existed." Her vindication could not have been more complete. The lady- in-waiting told her relatives that she had no wish for revenge on those who had insulted her. The Queen wept as she took her back into favour . , but Lady Flora could not resist the rebuke . "1 ant the first and I true! i shall n Aei nal Side Car—Covered with a plastic hood, this wounded soldier it being readied for a trip to a rear area somewhere in Korea. Stretchers'fit into specially constructed side attachments of he helicopter and ride the air comfortably. This casualty victim is receiving blood ,plasma before making the trip. Weighs 4Q2 at 15—Because his weight of 402 pounds wears him down in a hurry, 15 -year-old Billy Greenwell of Clermont, Ky., sits and watches television instead of playing his favorite game —roaming the hills of Bullitt county being a "cowboy," armed with two pistols. When he does play cowboy he wears his guns strapped to two combined belts which encircle his 60 -inch waist. Billy. who weight 9'i pounds at birth, began his unusual growth at the age of three after he had whooping cough. be the last Hastings to be treated so by their Sovereign." Sir James was dismissed from the service of some of his pa- tients, but unfortunately he still remained Physician to the Queen. Coupled with her refusal to dis- miss the ringleaders of the slam- .derous campaign, this caused much adverse comment. But the whispers brimmed tc open anger with the tragic se- quel Three months later a State ball was postponed on account of Lady Flora's illness. Within a week a State banquet was can- celled and the nation was elec- trified at the news that Lady Flora Hastings was dead. 5 Physicians' Evidence This time her family demand- ed a post-mortem to clear her name and five eminent doctors reported that she had died from enlargement of the liver. So stern was public opinion against the young Queen that she had to re• main in her Palace for tear of scenes. For that reason, too, Lady Flora's funeral cortege actually left the Palace at four in the morning. But even at that hour vast throngs bowed their heads along the route. As a mark of respect the Queen sent her car- riage to follow the procession ... and indignantly the crowds un- harnessed the horses and left it standing. The following year Queen Vic- toria dismissed all the Ladies of the Household save two. She had learned that when a Queen makes mistakes the shadows they may leave are long. From "Tit -Bits." The Incredible Gabor Sisters and Mother "Ail my life," said Mrs. Julie Gabor, "I have had one ambition —to get the best for my girls ir, every way. 11 you count success in riches and fame, then Mrs. Gabor has done very well for the girls— and very well for herself. The three young Gabors—Eva, Mag da, and Zza Zza—share with their mother the natural talents of wit and beauty which have made them one of the most fascinating families in the world. "I'll Wait For You" The story of the whole family is probably best told by the case of Zza Zza, who will be known to you for her acting, her contin- ual marital tangles, and her lack of tact regarding other women. She has been married three times. At 14, when she won a nation - wide beauty contest in her native Hungary, she met Turkish diplomatist Burhan Beige. As soon as he saw her he said: "I'll wait for you if you'll wait for me. I should like to marry you when you grow up." Three years later Zza Zza phoned him to accept. "He was handsome and wealthy, and we had four wonderful years to- gether," she said. "We didn't fik;ht much, and he taught me a great deal" Then came divorce and the Second World War. Zza Zza 'was stranded in Budapest with not], ing except a few pieces of jewel- lery and eight trunks full of beau tiful clothes. She Worildn't Spy "Mama taught us how to loan dle men, and I guess that is what brought me through Europe safely," she once said. Zza Zza and her sisters credit their mo- ther with teaching them every thing they know, and preparing them for every contingency. Mrs Gabor considers herself especially an expert on the subject of Men. When Zza Zza reached Bel. grade she was invited to become a spy, hut of Course, refused, During the course of her flight from Europe Zza Zza sold the same string of pearls to three different gentlemen. This was nothing fraudulent, for in each ease the gentlemen .r•eturued the jewels to her, explaining that • they couldn't bear to see her without theta, , When she arrived in Helly• wood Zza Zza found her sister, Eva, already there, married to a wealthy man and with a film contract, Zza Zza herself refused to accept a contract at first. In- stead, she married a multi -mil- lionaire hotel magnate. Four years later Zza Zza's se- cond marriage was dissolved. but she was considerably richer and still bubbling with the joy of living. By this time Mrs. Gabor and Magda had arrived in America and set up a cosmetic and jewel. lery business in the most fash- ionable part of New York. Even then the family was do- ing nicely. Now Mrs. Gabor owns the whole building in which her shop is housed, and both she and Magda have handsome balance° in their banks. In 1949 Zza Zza was married for the third time, to British actor. George Sanders. "I adore mar- riage; men are wild about me," she said. The quarrels between Zza Zza and Sanders have been frequent and colourful, but somehow there is always an °lenient of humour in them. It began when Zza Zza refused to appear in a They Said He Was Cray But Henry, Fooled Thea AH lie's crazy!" That was an opinion you would have heard freely and loudly and luridly ex- pressed by business men if you had lived in Detroit in 1914. For in that year a man—he was said to have wheels in his head --de- cided to double the daily wage he paid to his workpeople. This unusual decision nearly drove other employers in Detroit off their heads. In tact, several shut up shop, saying that they could not compete with a man who was destroying the labour market. Doubling wagest "He's crazy!" That what they said. And they meant it. But Henry Ford was nut crazy. "1'he right wage," he maintain- ed, "is the highest wage the em- ployer can steadily pay." He could pay all right. His Model T car was popular all over the United States. He wanted to increase the output—not for his personal gain—but to prove his own beliefs about life, "We need have no slumps in business," he once declared. "We need never have unemployment. Our recipe for hard times is to lower prices and increase wages," And about wages he argues that nobody knew what was a right wage because the world had never approached industry with the wages motive—from the angle of seeing how high wages may be—and "until it has we shall not know much about wages." Ford argued that wages must be regarded as purchasing power. In other words, business depends on people who are able to buy and pay. Million a Year The result of Ford's revolu- tionary attitude to wages was that nearly every employee in the Ford factories owned his own car — a Ford, of course! — and were consequently in s o an e measure responsible for increas- ing the output and sale of Ford ears. Ford had started his motor -ear business without any money of his own. But because he was known to be a very good en- gineer, twelve people decided to risk a little of their capital to help him start his own factory. The raised, between them, twenty-eight thousand dollars, and not one of them ever had genuine cause to regret it. Five of the original backers sold out; the seven who rerhained all be- came millionaires. In twenty years Ford sold a million cars, but because he per- sisted in putting money back in- to the business, because he con- stantly enlarged his factories, devised new and more efficient methods of production, he turn- ed out four million cars in the next six years, five million cars skit with him en a radio pro- gramme. "I am his wife," she said. "I won't have him talk that way to me, not even in a script" One line in the sketch had Sanders saying that he hadn't been able to get a word in since she said "Yes: Anyway, they separated, and Zza Zza declared: "I'm through with love ... I don't want to see him any more," But a little while later they were back together, "My astrologer," announced Zza Zza, "showed me a chart proving that the entire world would be destroyed by an atom bomb within the year. So I de- cided that as long as we're going to be around only a short time, I might as well take George back." The Prettiest When her mother was asked to describe Zza Zza, she said' "She is my prettiest. She is ter- ribly witty, with a mind like a man, and she commands respect for her brains as well as her beauty. I taught her well." With that you might sum up the whole fainly. Beautiful, charming, witty—and yet never quite serious. For. them, life is a game. And more than a game, it is a joke. in the next three years, and eventually achieved the colossal output of two million ears per year. Perhaps the most striking of his factory innovations was the eonveyor belt. Before he thought up the moving assembly line, a car in course of being made was stationary -- workmen came to the ear, adding a nut here, a mudguard there, and so on, "Which is Slave?" Ford changed all that. Hr made it possible for the car to go to the workman. On an end- less belt the car started from scratch. It passed along a lane of workmen. As it passed each man, the car got a nut here, it bolt there, a mudguard—and so on. Manpower was saved. Waste energy was reduced. Time was saved. As Ford said: "From waste there can be no salvage." He believed that the real pur- pose of industry was to multi- ply 'and cheapen things that satisfy human needs. He cer- tainly lived up to that belief when he mass-produced his cars so successfully that he could af- ford to increase wages and de- crease the purchase price of a Ford car. He began to multiply wealth in a way which frightened other manufacturers, and he made it possible for anybody to own a car, "The less the machine requires of the worker in the way of skill," he argued, "the more it demands of him in the way of obedience," And when you put thousands of machines side by side with, perhaps, only one man to look after each machine to see that the material is delivered. then "You have mass produc- tion." At the same time you have this question to consider: Which is the slave—man or machine? That question didn't worry Ford. "The man" — like the machine — "must be an automa- ton, too" because he thought that a man will work fewer hours and will therefore exert himself to produce more. "As a result, he will make more money and have more time to use it at play." Ford did not believe in that Amer=ican expression the "glad hand," or the personal touch. As far as he was concerned, a man did his work and went home. It may sound inhuman, but Ford's workers didn't mind: they worked hard for few hours and high pay. And then went home —to live their own way and en- joy the fruits of their labours. "Able to Buy" They knew Ford's view that the only source of profit was work. And not only hard work, but work well done, and that one of his maxims was that "the whole business depends on peo- ple who are able to buy and pay the benefit belongs to the public," Ford believed that men work- ing with their hands could never equal the mass production re- sults obtained from machines, nor could men earn high wages without machines. "A million men working with their hands." he declared, "could never ap- proximate our daily output. And even if they could, how could you manage a million men?" If Ford had ever worked under a Haig, or Foch, or a Montgom- ery, or an Eisenhower, he might have found the answer! lie Hated Waste But he had no experience of lsrmy life and warfare. War was waste—and he hated waste. Dur- ing the 1914-18 war he was de- luded by friends—and himself— by the idea that he could argue the warring nations into seeing the futility of war. His famous "Peace Ship," with Ford on board, sailed for Europe. His mission was a fiasco, and Ford was ridiculed all over the world. But when he declared that there were "two things men grow tired of—meaningless pov- erty and meaningless prosper- ity," he was talking sense. Vatican Disapproves—These drawings of the Stations of the Cross, by artist Rudolf Szyzskowilz, have been condemned by the Vatican as "too modern" to conform with the "point of view of the church." Szyzskowitz, a devout Catholic and leader of Austria's abstract school of art, had done the drawings for the Chapel of the Holy Cross in Graz, Austria.