ROMANCE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 207, 2 September 1936, Page 8

ROMANCE.

ENGAGED 28 YEARS.

LIFE-TIME LOVERS. AUCKLAND MAN TO WED. ENGLISH BRIDE ARRIVING. After an engagement which has lasted for 28 years, a schoolboy-schoolgirl romance which- started in Bradford, England, over 40 years ago is to culminate in the marriage in Auckland of Mr. John Turvey, aged 00, of 20, Oodrington Cresceat, Mission Bay, to Miss Mary Hannah Huntington, aged OS, of Bradford, England. The bride will arrive at Wellington by the lonic oil October 12.

The "Sun-Herald" news service, according to a Press Association cable received from London this morning, says: "Miss Huntington will sail by the lonic 011 September 4 to wed Mr. John Turvey, of Auckland, to whom she was affianced in 1890 before his departure for Now Zealand in search of fortune. Miss Huntington's devotion to her aged parents, both of whom are now dead, lias been the barrier to the earlier culmination of her romance. She had packed her luggage in 1912 in readiness to depart to New Zealand, but the illness of her mother caused the alteration of her plans."

"What's all this to-do and fuss about " asked Mr. Turvey at his home in Mission Bay when the cable was shown to him this morning'. "I don't want any fuss and I'm sure she wouldn't like it. Anyway, they have got their dates wrong. I came to New Zealand in 1901, and I reckon we were engaged in 1908, when she first said she would come out to New Zealand to be married." Since his arrival in New Zealand Mr. Turvey has spent most of his time in the Taranaki district engaged in cream grading and butter making at Stratford. War injuries forced him ta give up his work, and about IS months ago he came to settle in Auckland. He would work if he could, he says, but in the meantime lie has a small war pension to keep him going. The romance of Mr. Turvey and Miss Huntington goes-, back over 40 years, when they were playmates in Bradford, where both were born. Tliey lived close to each other and attended schools which were not far away. But Mr. Turvey J was reluctant to talk of those days. In fact, he wanted to know "what all this publicity is for." Mr. Tui;vey has not seen his bride-to-be since he left England, but he has kept in constant touch with her through the years and she has sent him photographs of herself. Not even when Mr. Turvey reached England with the 24th reinforcements on his way to the Great War did he find time to call on her, and after the war he came back to New Zealand without going to Bradford. M>*. Turvey has not yet made up his mind whether he will go down to Wellington to meet his bride when she arrives on the lonic. She intends to stay in Wellington with a brother for a few days, and then come to Auckland. The bridegroom thought it more likely that he would wait for her to arrive in Auckland. However, if he went to Wellington they might be married there. After the ceremony the couple intend to settle at Mr. Turvey's home in Mission Bay.