Queen Mother

Has Lost None Of Her Charm

From a Suva Correspondent British royalty has lost none of its charm for Fiji. This was shown by the two short visits to the Colony in March and April

of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen

Mother, while she was en route to Australia and New Zealand.

HER stay was an enormous success, and crowds on occasions actually were bigger than for the 1963 visit by the Queen and Prince Philip.

The Queen Mother has a great charm of her own, the display of which not even the efforts of an over-conscientious officialdom could smother (see p. 23, about traffic arrangements and reception invita tions).

There were some disappointments, because of rain. The greatest was when somebody decided that weather conditions were such that she should not visit the Fiji national athletics championships at Buckhurst Park.

Suva. This was to have been the main part of the Queen Mother’s visit to Suva as far as the children were concerned, and a huge child rens’ rally had been planned, and was cancelled.

Famous Canoe

The Fijian ceremonies of welcome at Government House grounds were also marred by rain.

One major departure from the Royal programme arose as a result of the Queen Mother’s interest in the iarge model canoe from the Fiji Museum which was used in the Government House ceremonies. She later asked if she could see one of the famous large double-hulled canoes.

The museum’s director, Mr. Bruce Palmer, said that there was such a canoe to be seen in Suva—housed at the old J. B. Turner residence, part of the late Mr. Turner’s col lection of Pacific artifacts. It was left behind when the collection went to the Auckland Museum some years ago, and is now believed to be the largest of its type in existence.

Mr. Palmer made arrangements with Mr. and Mrs. W. P. Ragg (Mrs. Ragg is a granddaughter of the late Mr. Turner), who now live

at the Turner house, and the Queen Mother inspected the canoe with great interest.

There was another unexpected departure from plans when at dinner on the Britannia the Queen Mother’s Lady-in-Waiting, the Lady Jean Rankin, mentioned that the Queen Mother had spent some time on Good Friday afternoon searching the beach at the island of Yakuve in the Astrolabe Lagoon for a golden cowrie shell. She wanted one for Princess Margaret. Not surprisingly, she did not find a specimen of this rare and beautiful shell.

Ratu K. K. T. Mara then excused himself and went to the gangway, where he gave some instructions to Assistant Superintendent Nemani Raikuna. The Assistant Superintendent soon returned with a magnificent golden cowrie from Ratu Mara’s home, which Ratu Mara asked the Queen Mother to accept as a gift from Adi Lala and himself. It’s now on its way back to Princess Margaret. • Royal visit in pictures, p. 117.