AUSTRALIAN ROMANCE

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 55, Issue 129, 13 March 1935, Page 3

AUSTRALIAN ROMANCE

CRITICALLY INJURED MAN. MARRIAGE IN HOSPITAL. Ernest ("Pat") Fox, who lost both legs through an accident at a meatworks at Grafton, New South Wales, recently, and was lying in a hospital dangerously ill, was married to his pretty fiancee, Irene Hopgood, the following week, in a screened ward of the Grafton Hospital. The Rev. D. A. Clarke performed the ceremony. The only others present were the bride's mother and sister and several nurses, although a crowd of friends watched proceedings from a window. Mr Fox signed the register with difficulty.

Wearing her wedding dug the bride was a picture of gladness when interviewed at the hospital the day after the ceremony. "1 am so proud and happy to be married," she said. "We have been engaged for 17 months, although we have known each other for much longer than that. I love Pat. Nothing on earth would deter me from marrying him. We were married as soon as he was well enough to go through the ceremony. My husband has improved ever since and the doctor now considers that he has a fighting chance of winning back to health. The hospital saff, the matron and the nurses have been wonderfully good to us."

Mrs Fox is an English girl, 18 years of age. She came to Australia with her mother and sister from Essex about five years ago. She first met Mr Fox when' he was conducting a milk delivery round, soon after she arrived at Grafton, ila came from England three years previously. The couple became engaged in September 1933.