REFUSED TO GO.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 85, 11 April 1938, Page 9

REFUSED TO GO.

KEPT LONELY VIGIL.

DISTRAUGHT COUNTESS.

WILL CONTINUE GOOD WORK.

LONDON", March 22.

The Countess of Kinnoull—daughter of the late Mrs. Mevrick, "Xight Club Queen of the West End" —refused to leave the Marvlebone nursing home where the body of her 35-years-old husband was lying.

Despite the entreaties of relatives and nurses to go home, the grief-stricken countess kept a lonely vigil in a darkened r<><4ii adjoining her husband's.

For more than 12 hours she refused to touch any food, and would not leave liis s>;le.

Unaware of the tragedy, the three Kinnoull children were romping merrily as usual with their nanny at the Rus-

sell Square Hotel, where they liave been living for some time. Their mother did not wish them to be told the news until she felt fit to tell them herself. Friend to All. "He was always good to the underdog," the countess, her eyes swollen with weeping, said. "The poor and the sick always found a friend in him. He was a generous and most lovable soul. "If he had not devoted so much of his time and energy to helping the down-and-outs during the last few years he would perhaps be alive to-day. "He has been a very sick man for two years. 1 have done little else except look after him. "When he should have been resting and saving his strength he has tired himself out looking after others. "A few hours ago I felt that life had finished for me, too. Now I know that I must go on for my children's sakes. "I am also going to try to keep on my husband's good work. He would have wanted me to. One of the desires I nearest his heart was to go to Spain. I was to have gone with him. Now I shall try to go alone and carry out his aims. "He was also interested in prison reform. We used to get hundreds of letters from grateful convicts. I want to keep on this work. "He was so keen and enthusiastic in his political work, and now, just when his ideals and hopes were bearing fruit—" the countess could not Inish the sentence. "To keep it all going ... is worth my whole life." One of the most colourful personalities ever to flit across the gaudy stage of London night club life, Lord Kinnoull bccame known as "the playboy who stopped beins the fool."

His first marriage was in 1923 to Miss Enid Hamilton-Fellows (a granddaughter of Sir Frederick Wills, the tobacco magnate), who inherited more than £1,000,000 from her mother. The marriage was dissolved in 1927.

His second wife was Miss Mary Ethel Isobel Mevrick, whom he married in 1928.

Eight years ago, after a gay London night life, Lord Kinnoull decided "to become a really useful member of society."