"LITTLE BERMUDA."

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 160, 8 July 1937, Page 19

"LITTLE BERMUDA."

A PLAN FALLS DOWN. AMERICAN'S ENGLISH VILLAGE. (Special.—By Air Mail.) LONDON", June 19. Captain Reginald Jaflfray, owner of a large astute m Bermuda, lyric-writer, JDtuuwlisi ;ukl philanthropist, had big ideas. Y\ ith :i fortune made out oi insurance ho bought up a little village, Dunefold, in Surrey, and planned to turn it into a model "Little Uormuila." In his mansion at Dunsford he lived in style. ihe villagers were deeply impressed by hi« lavishnees. He bought land and presented it to the village cricket club. "He wouldn't have a woman about the place," one of the villager* who worked for him said. All the servants were men. The bed in which Captain J affray slept was a. inagnilicont four-poster, carved with lingo grotesque figures. The only rugs in the house were animal skins. Walk and floors bristled witb heads of wild animals. Then euddenly Captain Jaffray left Dunsfold to winter in Bermuda. He left no instruction* about his property. Servants waited month*, heard no word, found themselves other join*. Xobody came to collect rent from the cottagers, so the squirelese villape paid no rent. The captain's fine lawns became a mas* of weeds. Vegetable seedr. stored in the greenhouses sprouted until overgrown carrots and turnips burst the panee. Rats and mice made their nests in the upholstery of the luxurious limousine that was left in the garage.

Now the mansion and the cottages have new owners. The property is being renovated and the village in returning to the sleeping normality of the Knjflisli countryside. And Captain Jaffray. his dream of a model village abandoned, is living in a Piccadilly flat. "England," he says, "k the only gentleman's country left."" ' •

He is devoting himself to his hobby of writing song lyricft. One ("I Planted a Tree") eold 250,000 copies last year.