Much-Travelled Visitor Would Like To Live Here

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30145, 31 May 1963, Page 2

Much-Travelled Visitor Would Like To Live Here

After less than 24 hours in Christchurch a woman who has lived in at least a dozen countries of the world has decided that she would like to come back here to live.

“One of these days I shall come back and build a house in Governors Bay . . . it’s a marvellous place, just beautiful there in the harbour,” said Mrs Sylvia Boughton, wife of the 8.0.A.C. sales manager for South-east Asia, Mrs G. Boughton, yesterday.

Her visit to the city was not nearly long enough for Mrs Boughton. Accompanyher husband on a business trip, she arrived here on Wednesday and left for Wellington yesterday. "But Hl be back.” she said. "I’ve already decided to start saving my pennies to come back. And then I’m going to have a - house in Governors Bay."

In her short time here, two th.ngs impressed Mrs Boughton (apart from Governors Bay, and the views she had of the harbour, the city and the hills during a drive around the Summit road): the cost of butter (“it’s only 2s a pound," she marvelled), and the mild, sunny, “winter” weather Canterbury provided during her visit. “It could have been a mid-summer’s day in England.”

An English tea-planter’s daughter, Mrs Boughton was bom in Ceylon. It was there in 1941, while her husband was away at war, that the Boughton’s daughter was born. Their first son was born at Asmara. Eritrea, on the Red Sea. Their youngest son was born in Paris.

When she is not travelling, Mrs Boughton is a free-lance model in London and particularly enjoys showing sports clothes. She has also modelled in Italy, New York and Paris. In England, the Boughton’s home is at Sunningdale, near Windsor, about 23 miles from the heart of London.

Two years ago, the Boughtons acquired another home. They bought land on the coast of Italy, about half way between Rome and Naples and built a “teeny weeny house” there, said Mrs Boughton. “We had it built with a thatched roof, but it looks rather like a Swiss chalet in shape. “Now. wherever I travel I’m on the lockout for tropical plants that we could have in the garden there.” Wood carvings hold a fascination for Mrs Boughton, and she has collected them from all over the world. Several Maori figures have already been added to her luggage. She is as interested in the wood and history of the pieces she collects as in the carvings themselves. Her interest in interior decoration can also be indulged during her wide travels. She gets all sorts of ideas and inspirations from the many different ways of life she sees.

For three years she lived

in Kuwait. The beauty of the women there fascinated her. “Many of them looked as you might imagine Persian princesses would. But, of course, they are not Persians.” Though some of the women there still wore veils, a great number were very modern and Westernised, and were beautifully dressed, she said.