Returning From Tokyo —A lone

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30629, 21 December 1964, Page 1

Returning From Tokyo —A lone

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copyright) TOKYO, Dec. 20.

Four little words have ended the romantic quest of Mr John Buckley, a 63-year-old retired New Zealand sheep farmer.

Miss Kiriyo Shimano, a 22-year-old university student whom Mr Buckley came to Japan to woo, told him last evening: “I never marry you.” Mr Buckley said today: “It was the biggest blow of my life.” He will now leave Tokyo for Christchurch byair on Tuesday. Mr Buckley had his first meeting with Miss Shimano and her family last evening after waiting since his arrival in Tokyo last Tuesday to see the girl he has been courting by letter for two months. He said he gathered from the meeting that Miss Shi-

mano was in love with another New Zealander. “Her attitude to me was completely different to our first meeting last month and I feel in the meantime she has met another New Zealand farmer, probably much younger than me, and will marry him instead,” Mr Buckley said. Mr Buckley said: “I was dreadfully upset after hearing those four words from her last night. . I simply locked myself in my hotel room and sat up throughout the night churning over the whole mess.”

Mr Buckley’s romance with Miss Shimano began when the shapely Japanese girl wrote to a newspaper in Wellington several weeks ago seeking a New Zealand farmer as a husband.

Mr Buckley wrote to her and flew to Tokyo, proposed to Miss Simano and gave her an engagement ring.

"When I left Tokyo last

time she wept at my departure,” he said. “I kept writing to her and flew out last Tuesday with the intention of marrying her and taking her home to Christchurch.” But Miss Shimano was not at the airport to meet Mr Buckley and that night in Tokyo the girl’s father and uncle, in a four-hour meeting, told Mr Buckley Miss Shimano was out of Tokyo and would never marry him.

They promised to produce the girl so Mr Buckley could hear her words for himself and after he had kept a fourday vigil in his hotel room, she telephoned him last evening and said she would see him.

Her uncle picked Mr Buckley up in his car and took him to his house where Miss Shimano, her father, an aunt and two girl cousins were waiting. “We drank a lot of green tea and the talking took a lot of time to get to

i the meeting,” Mr Buckley said.

“Then Kiriyo gave me her dreaded answer. I asked her for a reason, but she would not reply. “I was so upset that I begged the interpreter to close the meeting. The uncle drove me back to the hotel and told me it was useless my trying to contact Kiriyo again.” Her uncle said last week that Mr Buckley’s idea of marrying Miss Shimano was due to a misunderstanding.

The girl, according to her uncle, wants to act only as a tourist guide for New Zealanders and has no intention of marrying any of them. Mr Buckley said: “I’m in for a lot of harsh talking by my relatives at home, but I’ll face up to it—nothing more can hurt me now.”

Mr Buckley was spending today and tomorrow shopping for gifts to take homey