Names make news. Last week these names made this news:
To raise money for a retired nurses' fund, Britain's Prime Minister Harold Macmillan opened up his Sussex home to the public for one day, gathered more than $500 for the charity from some 2,000 who paid admissions, sipped soft drinks, gawked at the handsome gardens. In his best country-gentleman manner, the Prime Minister posed on the steps of Birch Grove House with wife Lady Dorothy and six blooming grandchildren: Anne Faber, 13, Alexander Macmillan, 14, Adam Macmillan, 10, Mark Faber, 7, Michael Faber, 12, and Joshua Macmillan, 13.
A skeleton in Michigan's family closet popped into the open last week when Governor G. Mennen ("Soapy") Williams' 15-year-old daughter Nancy penned for her school paper the hot scoop on why her daddy always wears a bow tie: Soapy is sloppy with soup. At one dinner with the late Governor Frank Murphy, young Pol Williams eased himself into a dining-room chair, sloshed his four-in-hand in the mushroom soup, stood up, dripped more soup down his shirt front. Mother Williams rushed for cleaning gear, allowed the rolls to burn in the confusion, choking the guests with kitchen smoke. But the evening was not lost. Commented Nancy: "It did succeed in breaking the ice with guests, though, and shortly all formality was forgotten."
Off to Europe for an art show and the beginning of Paris-Tokyo service by Air France, Japan's Prince Takamatsu took along some simple requests from the folks back home. On the wanted list: for Emperor Hirohito, an old pro at marine biology, scientific data on Hydrozoa and the latest French research on oysters; for Crown Prince Akihito, three kinds of tropical fish; for Prince Mikasa, the Emperor's youngest brother and a history prof at Tokyo Women's Christian College, a museum catalogue on archaeology.
For the late Queen Mary's 80th birthday in 1947, the BBC commissioned Mystery Writer Agatha Christie, by royal request, to do a radio drama called Three Blind Mice. Author Christie later expanded it into a stage play, The Mousetrap, thought it might run a couple of months at best. The day after The Mousetrap gave its 2,239th performance at London's Ambassadors' Theater, thus passing the musical Chu Chin Chow as the longest-running play in British stage history.* Producer Peter Saunders gave a hotel-jamming party for a few (1,000) friends, who cheered as Author Christie presented the theater with a gold-and-silver mousetrap. Murmured she on the triumph: "I suppose it's just like making sauce. Sometimes you get all the ingredients just right and you have a success."