HOW I MET MY HUSBAND

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 187, 9 August 1930, Page 8 (Supplement)

HOW I MET MY HUSBAND

COURTING DAYS OF CELEBRITIES,,

CAMEO PICTURES OF CUPID'S

WORK.

Husbands and wives can never forget the circumstances in which they first met one another and the days of gladness which followed during their courtship.

Few engagements have such romantic beginnings as those of the well-known married women who here reveal how they became acquainted with their husbands.

LADY ALAN COBHAM (wife of the famous British airman.) One evening a certain young aviator found himself at a loose end, with nothing particularly exciting to do. He was bored and rather tired and thought that a seat in a theatre would cheer him up. So as a last resort he strolled into one, anticipating the worst. Prom what I subsequently gathered he enjoyed the show immensely, and was particularly struck with one member of the cast who happened to be playing a leading part. That evening he sent a polite note to the leading man asking him if he and any members of the company would care to come for a short air trip on the following niorning. I suppose he hoped that the invitation would be accepted by some of the fair members of the company, and particularly by the leading lady. It was. The next morning the leading lady and the others of the cast were taken up for a flight. They enjoyed it immensely—especially the leading lady. It so happened that I was the leading lady in that particular show. Within the next three days we were engaged. The bored aviator, of course, was Alan Cobham.

FRIGHTENED BY FUTURE HUSBAND. Countess Margit (wife of the Hungarian Premier.) I first met my husband when I was a little girl of about thirteen. He made a deep but disagreeable impression upon me, though I must say that it was not his fault but rather that of, circumstances, At that time I was a tall gawky girl with a pigtail hanging down my back, and resided generally in the school room —only going to the drawing room when sent for. But that afternoon my governess sent me in with a message to my mother, thinking she was alone. I ran in, knocking over a chair in my hurry, and stopped transfixed with shyness on seeing a very thin soldier, whom I had never seen before, sitting opposite my mother. For at' that time my future husband was a volunteer.

I do not remember just what I said, but I know I felt very red and'hot when we shook hands and my mother introduced me. I wa£i so ashamed at having rushed in like a whirlwind before an entire stranger that years after I went red whenever his name was mentioned. I did not see him again for many years to come —not until I was quite seventeen and had come out, I believe. Then, of course, the situation was changed. I also belonged now to the envied class of the grown-ups, and the time of serenading and sending flowers began, which is a lovely time in any girl's life. One year later we were married.

COLONEL'S LIGHTNING COURTSHIP. Rosia Forbes (the Woman Explorer and Author.)

I was lecturing to ft Geographical Society and the hall was so crowded that in order to secure a seat for the Irish colonel, whom I had only met once before, I was obliged to introduce him as my fiance. The secretary established him on the platform, so I had to explain the ruse.

"Intelligent anticipation!" twinkled the soldier, and a few days later we were married.

That night, when my excitement was divided between the first great audience to whom I had ever lectured and the man behind me, who, I hoped would invite me to supper, was undoubtedly a turning point in my life, but I did not Realise it at the time.

SYMPATHY BECOMES LOVE. Jessie Conrad (Widow of Joseph Conrad, the Famous Novelist). » My first meeting with Joseph Conrad was quite casual —so casual, in fact, that to the end we differed as to the actual date. We had an- old mutual friend, by whom I was introduced to the man who was to become, two years later, my husband —and afterwards one of the foremost novelists of the day.

My most vivid recollection of that first meeting was a sensation of awe mingled with a sensation of satisfaction. It must have bee.n nearly a year > before we met again, this time as quite old friends.

At that first meeting, although, as wa confessed later, we both experienced a feeling of immediate sympathy and interest, there was the fact of otfr different nationality—less troublesome to him, of course, than to me. At that time I had met very few foreigners, and certainly none so foreign or interesting as Joseph Conrad (or rather Konrad Korzeniowski—the initials in his hat, I remember, were "K.K.") In those early days I knew him better by his Polish name than by the name he was later to make so well-known throughout the Englishspeaking world.

I think that from the first a part of the immense attraction he had for me was due to a strong maternal affection I immediately developed . for this_ lonely stranger. And to that quality of aifection I attribute the unusual influence I obtained over him which lastec throughout the years we were together

JOINED BY FATE. Sybil Thorndike (the Famous British Actress.) Loosely speaking, it was quite by chance that I first met my husband. It happened that I attended a rehearsal of one of Mr. Shaw's plays. Shaw was, apparently struck with the idea that I would make a good understudy for a certain part, with the result that I was called upon to do this. It was then that I first met my hus--1 band. But I am fatalist enough to believe that If I had not met him at that 1 particular time, we should have been brought together later, Such events are not blind chance, __ ' '■■' ' ■ " ■._.

ASTRONOMER'S WOOING. j Mme. Camille Flammarion (widow of the' Famous French Astronomer.) When I was six years old my parents moved in to Paris and took a. flat neai the Paris Observatory, in the house in which Camille Plammarion lived on the fifth floor. Coming home from school with my girl friends, I often met the already celebrated astronomer, whom I looked upon as a "nice old man" on account of the difference in our ages. It was a matter of pride to me that I should live in the same house with him. Eventually my parents' made his acquaintance, and when we met on the stairs he would greet me pleasantly am/ give me a playful pat on the head, but that was all. He was a great man and I was only a child. It never occurred to me that I might some day become his collaborator and his wife.

When I was eighteen I had just left school and was on the point of choosing a profession, my mother, who was still quite young, died suddenly. My father could not survive the shock, and three weeks later, he followed her to the grave. Their death made a complete change in my circumstances. What was left by my parents was not enough to keep me and permit of my following a course of serious study. My guardian wanted me to marry a man whom I hardly knew and certainly did not care for, and the only alternative was for me to find work.

I had no relative to whom I could apply, and then I thought of Camille Plammarion, who had attended my father's funeral and asked me very kindly about my plans for the future. I went to see him and told him all my troubles and how anxious I was to find a position as secretary to someone doing scientific work. I told him that I had already had a certain amount of scientific training, and that my only desire was to work hard and make up for what might be lacking. Camille Plammarion offered me an engagement as his secretary on a month's trial, without pay. Never in my life have I worked with such enthusiasm as during that month, for which I was to receive nothing. I was perfectly happy. Camille Plammarion soon saw that I could be of real use to him, and in three years I was not only his secretary, but his principal assistant.

Camille's first wife died in 1919, and after having been his companion in work, I became his companion for life. In spite of the great disparity in age, it was the happiest of marriages.

SPELL OF LAUGHING EYES. Vilma Banky (the Hungarian Film star.) • ,- ; I close my eyes and see the brown/; lean face of a young man. When I first arrived in Hollywood from my native Budapest, feeling very shy and strange, and a little lonely, Mr. Goldwyn, who had brought me over, presented me to this young man. He was tall and dark, with laughing eyes. He was to take me to dinner. Then came a day when I reclined in a bright coloured boat under a Japanese umbrella, and a man, dark, tall, with laughing eyes, rowed slowly, and smiled. The?water was still, peaceful; the evening magic. And the sinewy, sunburnt arms pulled the oars slowly, steadily, rhythmically, and the eyes looking at me smiled. He could say tender things with his eyes, that man. His ways were not my ways, but his thoughts somehow were entangled with mine. Suddenly he seemed to have all the attributes of .my ideal man. ,-,,:.' So we were married. The face I see now, as vividly when I close my eyes as when it confronts me, lean dark, laughing, over the breakfast table, is my husband's, Rod la Rocque's.