GREAT BRITAIN: Sopping Ascot

Smartest Englishwomen appeared at Royal Ascot on the third day of the races last week in short frocks.

Reason for this abrupt abandonment of the long-skirted mode: On the second day the Heavens opened, shot a bolt of lightning which killed popular Bookie Walter Holbein as he was accepting bets, then poured such a Biblical deluge that water backed up six inches deep in parts of the Royal Enclosure, svelte ladies lost their shoes in the mud, everyone’s long skirt got spattered and trampled, picture hats were lost, soaked and crushed in the mad scramble for cover, everyone’s car or bus seemed to stick in the mire, and long after dark bedraggled gentlemen with utterly ruined grey toppers drove sadly up to London in waterlogged sport cars, their womenfolk clustered on sodden back seats with tired, disgusted, hair-streaked faces.

Only the indomitable English “lower classes” made a lark of the Ascot deluge. Nips of whiskey were not disdained by young or old. As groaning busses got under way both men and women removed major portions of their outer clothing, hilariously hung them up to dry, rattled flapping and roistering home.

Winner just before the thunderclap of the Royal Hunt Cup was The MacNab, a 100 to 7 shot owned by John Arthur Dewar, nephew and heir of whiskey’s Baron Dewar whose title died with him (TIME, April 21). In cinema theatres throughout Britain the flashed news that “their Majesties were standing a very short distance from where the lightning struck” led to much fervent singing of “God save our gracious King, Long live our noble King!”

Admitting that short frocks only were smart on the third (post-deluge) day (which incidentally was fine),the Conservative Evening Standard’s male representative at Ascot described as follows for readers who include most of the peerage what seemed to him to be the actual mode this year: “A tight-fitting bodice of transparent muslin with a skirt which may be made in one of two ways: either it is a mass of narrow frills from waist to hem or is gathered at the waist and flows outward, measuring goodness knows how many yards in circumference around the feet.

“The idea was repeated with variations in blue or delicate green, like lettuce, which, alongside a pink frock, gave the effect of a salmon salad.”