AU REVOIR TO LONDON.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 52, 3 March 1930, Page 19

AU REVOIR TO LONDON.

LONDON GIRL IN CANADA.

SNOWSHOES AND DOG TEAM.

LADY RITSON'S ADVENTURE.

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

VANCOUVER, February 3,

London society has palled on one of its prettiest adherents, Lady Kitty Ritson, young daughter of the Countess of Airlie. She has left behind her the comforts and climate of England to spend part of the winter in a lonely cabin, miles from habitation, at Metagama, in Ontario, Canada. There, with her companion, Miss Eira Wiggins, she has been spending the days on snowshoes or behind a dog team exploring the brush country which won her heart two years ago.

There is a legend in the family of the Countess of Airlie, to the effect that once an ancestor sailed across the seas to Canada, fell in love with a beautiful Indian girl, married her and took her back to live in the old ancestral castle. This, Lady Kitty, who is a very beautiful and entirely charming young woman, says,.is probably why she responded so quickly and so completely to the call of the wilds.

A traveller who has visited every country of the world, she has written several books, and was responsible for a series of articles in the London Press entitled, "The Underworld of Constantinople," which attracted much attention. She is a regular contributor to the London "Daily Mail," and her literary returns afford her means to travel. On her next trip she hopes to go by dog sleigh far into the northern Canadian country. There are eight white people at Metagama, and Lady Kitty's cabin is 12 miles from the nearest habitation. While outfitting in Montreal Lady Kitty subjected herself to an interesting interview.

Interview Granted. Lady Ritson took some of the glamour out of the original story sent out from Toronto to London newspapers when she denied that she had the train 6topped because she liked the Indian name of Metagama. "Just imagine me having so much influence with the Canadian Pacific that they would stop trains anywhere I asked them," she ejaculated. "And

you can also say that I did not have the train stopped just because I liked the name.

' "What actually happened was this. I went to Montreal and asked the Canadian Pacific officials where I ought to go, for I wanted to spend a few weeks in the wilds. Anyway, the Canadian Pacific officials told me a good place to go would be Metagaina, and I could stay there at the station with the station master and his wife. This I did. They were both very nice. This time, however,' I am going to take a shack and live there for a fortnight or more. I make my living by my hobby of dog raising. I raise Alsatians, or police dogs. The dogs are my hobby, while the money I make for travel is through journalism. After attending the dog show I expect to come back to Quebec to see the dog derby. I am'very keen on these derbies. Not a "Society Bud.'" "I am not a 'society bud,' for I am 40; and I do not live in London, "but in Cobham. We have to live near London, for ray husband, Colonel Ritson, is head of one of the biggest paper companies in England, and, of course, has to go down to the city every day. How. could I be surfeited with London society when lam never in it? As a matter of fact, it is my husband, and not myself, who is the famous member of our family., He was captain of the British polo team away back in 1913 or thereabouts, and was'considered one of the greatest polo players that ever lived." Lady Kitty said she was delighted with Canada because of its snow. She enjoyed the outdoors, and as a writer it was all atmosphere. The interview being at an end, and still smiling at the idea of the London society belle stopping the Imperial Limited, she called back over her shoulder: "Don't forget to say that I am 40."

Thus Lady Kitty shattered the illusion that Debrett is infallible, for that book of reference to the British peerage says that she was born in 1887.