RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33450, 4 February 1974, Page 24

RANDOM REMINDER

BLUSHING BRIDE

Newspapers no longer report anything of much less standing than a Royal wedding, but in days gone by, the nuptuals of members of many strata of society were faithfully recorded. Or as faithfully as circumstances allowed. A veteran newspaper man of our acquaintance was recalling the other day his prime as a cub reporter on a small country paper. He was sent, trembling and afraid, to report a high society wedding. He was armed with pencil and paper, but not with even the faintest idea of what he was expected to write. But to his great delight, he found that a very

lovely girl sitting beside him "in the church was willing and able to assist him. She told him he had to mention the dress worn by the bride’s mother, and she described it for him. He jotted away happily. She continued with descriptions of the bridesmaids’ frocks, the outfit worn by the groom's mother, and finally in a helpful stage whisper, got on to the bridal gown. “The bride” she dictated, “wore a gown of high quality imported English winceyette.” In his role as Boswell, he wrote on happily. He submitted his story, and the sub-editor on duty duly put it through

without alteration; he was a middle-aged bachelor whose knowledge of these affairs was as skimpy as that of his cub reporter. The report was published. The young reporter was at his desk next day when the office calm was disturbed by a very angry female. She announced she was the mother of the bride, and underlined her state of disenchantment by hitting the lad on the head with her handbag. There was one further revelation. The discovery that the reporter’s charming ally had been, until a very short time before, the closest lady friend of the bridegroom.