GRETNA GREEN STORIES

Evening Star, Issue 21012, 28 January 1932, Page 5

GRETNA GREEN STORIES

TWO COUPLES REFUSED NON-RESIDENCE OBSTACLE. For the second time within _ a week, Mr Richard Rennison, the blacksmith of Gretna Green, recently shattered a runaway marriage romance. After a twelve hours’ motor cycle ride from the Yorkshire moors a young couple from Kirby Moorside'were told they could not be married because they had not been resident in Scotland for three weeks. They are Mr J. W. Atkinson, aged eighteen, and his twenty-five-year-old sweetheart, Marion Dawson. “ They came to me about half-past 7 in the evening,” said Mr Rennison. “ When I told them I could do nothing they were bitterly disappointed. I took them to a boarding house near the smithy, and they left next morning.” A Southport couple, who aroused _ the blacksmith from his bed late one night, were told they gould not be married, as they had not lived in Scotland for twentyone days. Mr Rennison and his anvil took part in a Gretna Green pageant in Manchester in December. Scores of mock marriages were then performed, for, once away from Scotland, the anvil loses its legal status. Theatrical and film stars attended a hall to he held in aid of a_ hospital, and took part in the mimic marriages. “ It is the first time that I or the anvil have been to Manchester,” Mr Rennison said. “We have visited Carlisle, London, and Birmingham together for charity purposes.” Mr Rennison married 300 couples over the anvil last year.