Duke Of Kent Apparently Prefers Blondes

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28679, 1 September 1958, Page 2

Duke Of Kent Apparently Prefers Blondes

The 22-year-old Duke of Kent apparently prefers blondes, says a London correspondent. The two young women he has most frequently escorted during the last year—2o-year-old Miss Janet Bryce and 25-year-old Miss Katharine Worsley—are both fairhaired beauties. Miss Bryce, who lives in Essex, is tall and slim. Her step-mother, formerly American heiress Mrs Josephine Hartford Douglas, is one of the richest women in the world. Betrothal Thought Likely Miss Worsley is the daughter of Colonel Sir William Worsley, Lord Lieutenant of the North Riding of Yorkshire. She has seen the Duke of Kent so frequently in recent months that friends believe an engagement is imminent. Their friendship began in May, 1957, when the Duke donned a startling Tudor costume—scarlet doublet and pantaloons—went to a Hunt fancy dress ball, and danced most of the evening with her. Miss Worsley was dressed as a Dresden shepherdess. Since then they have often played tennis, been on picnics, and attended church together. They have twice been to the tiny Palace Cinema at Malton 'in Yorkshire, as well as to dances, point-to-ooint meetings, and a summer variety show in Scarborough. The Duke, who is stationed with the Scots Greys at Catterick Camp, has frequently spent week-, ends at the Worsley home in the picture-postcard Yorkshire village of Hovingham. It is about 50 miles from camp and he drives there Irihis sports car as often as three times In orie week. Friend}- - o f Miss wor,ley’s three

Brothers have often visited Hovingham Hall, but none of them so frequently as the Duke. Interest in Orphans

Katharine Worsley was educated at Runton Hill, Norfolk, and went to a finishing school at Oxford. Afterwards she worked for- a time at St. Stephens, a home for orphan children in York, in .which the Worsley family have taken an interest. She has also worked as a teacher in a kindergarten school, and at a London school, teaching the junior classes. She is a capable horsewoman and an accomplished pianist, and. since she met the Duke has developed an interest in motor-cars.