... . These W.A.A.F.s, smart in their new battle-dress, have been learning to man Britain's barrage balloons Practising the difficult art of handling balloon ropes a study in concentration. Learning splicing and knots in the rope shop. The diagrams of knots on the wall should be noted. Training with a sectionised winch is part of the programme of work in the Balloon Girls school. Hard at it in the ...

... SLIP-ON FROCKS IN LAME AND CREPE WRAPPERS AND MULES THERE has come into being a new type of dress which is called the slip-on. It is robbed of all com plicated fastenings and may be adjusted in the fraction of a second. Fortnum and Mason, Piccadilly, are making a feature of these, one of which is pictured above. It is carried out in a soft blue crepe embroidered with golden sequins. A folded ...

... . LIEUT. -COLONEL J. T. C. MOORE-BRABAZON, P.C., M.C., M.P., became Minister of Transport iri October. His Free Lifts scheme, under which motorists receive an extra ration of petrol if able to help neighbours by driving them to and from their London offices, has proved a big success. He is a pioneer motorist and aviator, a great Cresta rider, and a golfer. He won the Circuit des Ardennes motor ...

... WE TAKE OFF OUR HAT TO- HOW TO BE STARCHY AND HOW TO UNBEND- BY CAROLE LOMBARD AND ROBERT MONTGOMERY. y 1 1 THE SQUADRON COMMANDER on the left of this group of pilots for taking the Christmas cake, for his Messerschmitt hat-trick. LIEUT. DON BRADMAN-- for getting two pips and a duck in the same year. Left MR. KRUGER GRAY for being the designer of the King's own Cross and Medal. Right THESE ...

... PRINCIPAL GIRL FOR MOTHER GOOSE. Q LOIS DAVIS is Jill, the principal girl for Prince Hitler's pantomime, Mother Goose, produced at Streatham Hill on December 26 for a four-weeks season. Stanley Lupino plays the title-rSle, and Hal Bryan is Idle Jack while Jean Carr is Colin and Marian Gerth Gretchen. London's other Pantos, are, Aladdin at the Coliseum, and at Golders Green and Mother Goose ...

... A PICTORIAL RECORD OF GILRERT SULLIVAN OPERAS A PICTORIAL RECORD OF GILRERT SULLIVAN OPERAS iiis 48-page pictorial record of the Gilbert and Sullivan ieras, published by THE SPHERE, deals com. ehensively with the most popular of the famous Operas, il the new stars, as well as the established favour. >es, are featured in their own particidar roles and MANY AGES IN FULL COLOUR SHOWING SCENERY ...

... ONE could not wonder at any rate, nobody did wonder that Cheng should have been smitten by Rosie, since Rosie was a rare item in the London scene. One can go about London all day for a week and seldom see a living creature. Millions of animated phantoms pass along, but only when one of the Rosies flashes by does one realise the meaning of being alive. Rosie was unmistakably alive. She was ...

... . PHOTOGRAPH BY CECIL BEATON. 3 LILY ELSIE had London at her feet in 1907 when she appeared at Daly's as Sonia in Franz Lehar's Viennese musical comedy The Merry Widow and her name is always associated with the role. This is what she looks like to-day slender, decorative and youthful. Miss Elsie retired from the stage on her marriage to Ian Bullough in 1911, but returned in 1915, and tvas last ...

... . A.T.S. girls are given skilled instruction in driving, car maintenance and running re pairs to fit them to take the wheel of staff cars, ambu lances, lorries, and other transport. Here a Captain in the R.A.S.C. is giving volunteers instruction in the rule of the road with the aid of a model which looks like the loveliest toy ever in vented. It is complete with roundabouts, pedestrian cross ...

... HEAVENS A MAN, BY HAROLD WILLIAMSON. The 92nd Exhibition of the New English Art Club has just opened at the Suffolk Street Galleries, and is a most attractive show. It is true that it offers neither sensations nor shocks, but it presents a series of pictures of contemporary life rendered in many instances with poetic realism. There are com paratively fe iv war-pictures, some interesting ...

... BEYOND ALL DEMUR ARRESTINGLY GOOD-LOOKING This new portrait of MISS VIVIEN LEIGH, of G.W.T.W.--or Gone with the Wind has just been completed by David Jagger, and is for her husband, Laurence Olivier. Miss Leigh is on tour with the revival of G. B. Shaw's play The Doctor's Dilemma, in which she plays the leading role of Mrs. Dubedat. G.B.S.'s own description of his character, Mrs. Dubedal, ...

... ANN TODD plavs the important role of Kay Gordon in Michael Balcon's new production, SHIPS WITH WINGS. Kay is in love with Lieut. Stacey, but he falls for Celia Weatherbv. After Stacey's disgrace, Celia marries another pilot, David Grant, and Stacey goes to Palmos in the Mediterranean to run a one-machine air-line. Kay appears with Fields and the German pilot, Wagner, and on the outbreak of ...