Word: capes
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...parched Grahamstown, on the eastern coast of Cape Province, the royal family arrived just as the first showers in four months began to fall. "The King is the bringer of rain!" shouted 9,000 grateful Bantus massed in the town square. Dusky women, their faces painted white and yellow for the occasion, waved corncob pipes in lusty greeting; Bantu men, led by dapper Chief Vukile (in a smart brown suit and fedora) and his counselors (one in a gilded top hat, military greatcoat and pajama pants), raised cheers for "Sozizwe"(the Father of All Nations) and prepared to slaughter eight...
...Order of Merit-shuttled between official receptions and informal garden parties, intransigent nationalists wilted left & right before the family's charm. Daniel Malan, nationalist leader of the opposition, conscientiously boycotted Parliament's address of welcome, but even he was on hand at the state banquet. In a Cape Town park, a group of ardent anti-Britishers enjoying a barbecue apologized for their open shirts and rolled-up sleeves when ubiquitous Smuts suddenly appeared and introduced them to the King & Queen...
...South African couturiers expected both to set a new style. (Since South Africa is a leading producer of ostrich feathers, this feature of the Queen's costume attracted special attention.) At a Civic Ball in the town, Princess Elizabeth danced the Princess Foxtrot (composed in her honor) with Cape Town's Mayor Abe Bloomberg. On the following day the entire family watched a stately quadrille at a huge ball given by the "colored community" in the City Hall. For once royal fashions played second fiddle to a dazzling array of East Indian and Malay costumes...
...their last day in Cape Town the King & Queen donned their best finery (an admiral's uniform with the blue ribbon of the Garter for him; a gown of pale crepe and Queen Mary's borrowed diamond tiara for her), to preside at the opening of South Africa's Parliament -the first British monarchs ever to do so. The King spoke for six minutes, first in English, then in Afrikaans. That night the family boarded the 14-car royal gold-and-cream train, to continue their conquests over 5,000 miles for the next eight weeks...
...South Africa, however, the readers were lapping it up, and editors shoved other news aside. An irresistible exception was the story of two teen-aged daughters of a Cape Town railroad laborer, who had simultaneously turned to boys. The younger promptly decided to leave a girls' seminary and join the army. But as the Vanguard finally sidled up to her Cape Town wharf, 1,200 other less protean schoolgirls, dressed in their best white, lined up to form the word "Welcome" on the side of Signal Hill. Some 200,000 more South Africans stood in the sweltering...