STOWED AWAY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 230, 28 September 1935, Page 7

STOWED AWAY.

[WOMAN ON REMUERA.

DESPERATE LONDON PLIGHT.

GOING HOME TO SYDNEY.

Driven to desperation by the distressing circumstances of her married life, and thousands of miles away from her relations and friends, a young women whose home is at Croyden, Sydney, stowed away at the London docks on the New Zealand Shipping Company's liner Remuera, just over five weeks ago.

It was with a sinking heart that the young woman hid herself in the third class pantry within a few yards of where the stewards were working, but her ruse was successful. She was not discovered, and when she surrendered at sea nearly two days later the sympathy of the passengers was prompted to raise sufficient money to pay her passage. The remainder of the voyage was made as a passenger, and next week she will complete the last portion of the long voyage which will take her back to home and comfort. How She Found Hiding. Relating her experience this morning, the woman, who is in her early thirties and of slight build, stated that she followed her husband to England last year arriving there in May. Her husband had had a mental collapse and was an inmate of an institution, and it was apparent that he was never likely to regain normal health. The wife was in desperate straits and was forced to earn a livelihood, which she did in an East End hotel. It was a rough establishment, but paradoxically enough these circumstances played an important part in the condoning of lier escapade. Because of the predatory habits of some of the staff of the hotel the woman kept her passport, birth and marriage certificates constantly in her possession; when she made a dash one afternoon for the Remuera from Liverpool station these, and the clothes she stood in, were her

only possessions. Later the papers assisted in verifying her identity; as for her clothes, well, sympathetic passengers supplied her lavishly. It was only a few minutes before sailing time when the woman joined the Remuera, a gangway pass which she had secured facilitating this. Hurriedly she looked about the decks for a hiding place, but nowhere could she find any place which seemed to suit her purpose. Driven to the point of changing her mind, she went into the tourist class pantry to assauge her thirst. A jumble of wind-chutes and other odds and ends filled the end of the pantry remote from the door and there she hid, reclining in a sink. About her the stewards were soon working and she could overhear their conversation. She remained there all night and throughout the next day when the Remuera was at Plymouth. The latter port was cleared that evening and it was not until towards midnight that the stowaway revealed herself. The first person she met was theship's "writer," who did not receive favourably the announcement that the woman wished to see the captain until she said, "I am a stowaway." Over £40 Subscribed. The remainder of the adventure is soon told. Passengers next day, when they became familiar with her desperate effort to get home, subscribed just over £40 to cover her passage to Australia. The woman's papers supporting her statements, authority was obtained by wireless to take the stowaway for the remainder of the journey as a passenger. This morning the brightness of Auckland's sunshine brought further comfort and warmth and she awaited the berthing of the Remuera so that she might go ashore and purchase a suitcase for the many gifts of clothing which shipboard friends had given her.