BACK TO THE WILD

Evening Star, Issue 22249, 29 January 1936, Page 13

BACK TO THE WILD

TIRED OF CIVILISATION EX-MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT The ten-months-old secret marriage of a former member of Parliament was revealed recently when he sailed away from Britain for ever. He was Colonel R. V. Applin, who had grown weary ot twentieth-century civilisation, and was buying a lonely farm for himself and his wife in Basutoland, 4,000 ft up m the wild and isolated Drakensberg Mountains. His bride was his secretary for two years, known as Miss r meld. When friends have called to say “ Good-bye,” his wife has opened the door and ushered them to his room. Always they regarded her as a member of his household staff.' .The colonel is 65 years old. and his bride a widow of 39. 1 ' “ All my friends,” he said, “ have continued to be under the impression that lam a lonely widower. 1 encouraged that belief, but we were married last February by special license very privately. Our marriage was kept secret because I did not want to hurt the feelings of the people of Enfield whom I then represented in the House of Commons. They adored my first wife. “ I received a present of silver plate from my former constituents at Enfield a few days ago, but still kept my secret, feeling terribly guilty. “ Shortly after Christmas, 1934, my wife became seriously ill. Her life was despaired of for a fortnight. I discovered during those crucial days that she was far more to me than I ever imagined. During her convalescence I proposed to her and was accepted. , “ We ruled out the London register offices because we feared our secret would leak out. Barking, Essex, seemed remote, and, in addition, the curate of the parish church, the Rev. E. J. G. Barnett, is the son of the man who was my commanding officer when I joined the North Borneo Constabulary in 1889. He has kept our secret, and so have the two witnesses to the ceremony.” Colonel Applin has lived in the wild places of the earth before, in Borneo, India, and Africa. “ I am answering the cal] of the wild,” he said. “It has been pulling me back for a long time. I want to say good-bye for ever to London with its detestable reek of motor cars, its din, its money grubbing, and its .crowds. “ I have in mind the place where I shall escape from the telephone, the radio, and the traffic signals. I shall make ray way to the Drakensberg Mountains to a little township called Kokstaad, on the border of Cape Colony and Basutoland. “ I shall look around for a place between 4,000 and 5,000 feet up. Here I shall spend my time breaking in wild horses, fishing, and shooting. I shall cultivate an English flower and vegetable garden, and keep a cow or two and chickens. “ I shall have with me as staff an Indian and his wife and a Zulu groom. I shall miss my parliamentary life and my association with one of our great statesmen. How I should like to have Lloyd George sitting at my camp fire with his witty stories, or Winston Churchill with his brilliant epigrams.” Colonel Applin confessed that he was also taking with him two top hats and liis Ascot clothes, “ just in case I feel tempted to make the 200 miles journey to Durban for a little social life.”