YACHT WRECKED OFF FRANCE

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27463, 24 September 1954, Page 13

YACHT WRECKED OFF FRANCE

Wife Of Christchurch Man Drowned (Rec. 1.30 a.m.) LONDON. Sept. 23. Mr Stanley Simpson, aged 64, a New Zealander, clung to his wife in rough seas for three hours after their holiday yacht was wrecked yesterday. Then his wife, Winifred, aged 58, slipped from his grasp and was drowned, the Paris correspondent of the “Daily Express” reported today. Mr Simpson, with his daughter, the best selling novelist, Ursula Keir, and two other men, were rescued and taken to hospital at St. Malo, western France. All five had been cruising in the 40ft yacht. Memerang. Reuter’s Paris correspondent reports

that the four survivors were well on their way to recovery in hospital this morning. The correspondent says the 12-ton craft struck a rock and overturned opposite the Grand Jardin lighthouse, near St. Malo. Mrs Simpson slipped from the grasp of her husband, a retired Christchurch shipbuilder, just before French lifeboats arrived. Other survivors were Miss Ursula Keir Simpson, aged 24. who writes under the name of Ursula Keir: Julian Fane, aged 28. a cousin of Lord Westmorland; and a Cambridge undergraduate, Howard Wintie, aged 18, of North London.