LORNA DOONE

Greymouth Evening Star, 3 October 1930, Page 9

LORNA DOONE

GREAT SOMERSET PAGEANT. Lorna Doonc, the traditional heroine of Exmoor, came back to her own country again a few weeks ago from her centuries-long sleep in Oare Churchyard. A Daily Express correspondent says:—“We have seen Lorna wooed by great John Ridd, rescued from the Doone Valley, married to John, and then shot down by Carver Doone as she left the church on the arm of her husband. All this history of Lorna and John was played on Seiworthy Green by county folk and villagers whose families have lived in the Exmoor district since long before the Duke of Monmouth raised his standard over Taunton Castle. “The whole village of Sclworthy, from the rector down to the children in the parish school, have presented the pageant of Lorna Doone to an excited and highly appreciative audience. It is worth while coming a long journey to see this country play-acting founded on Blackmore’s splendid romance. All the essentials of the pageant are home-made and real Somerset, and excellent.

“The Rev. J. N. Wallis, rector of Sclworthy, wrote the pageant book, and in between whiles fashioned thq breastplates and armour of the Doones. He, too, played the part of Parson Bowden. The rector’s daughter, Miss E. C. Wallis, was .a lovely Lorna, and the rector’s son, six feet two in his stockings and sixteen stone in weight, was a proper John Ridd. “Colonel Unthank led tbe Doones in their realistic lighting. Mr H. A. Acheson Gray was a completely blackhearted Carver Doone, and Sir Harry Malel a thoroughly attractive highwayman. The whole pageant was presented by Major M. Cely-Trevilian, deputy lieutenant of tbe county.

"There could never be a better setting for pageant history than the diamond space of Seiworthy Green, set in the wooded foothills of Exmoor, square-towered church and thatched sixteenth century cottages on one side, and a singing stream on the other. It was into this stream that John Ridd tiling Carver Doone to his death.

"John did not, witli his grip, tear the muscle from the Doone’s right arm like the string from an orange, as he did in the story book, but after all, one cannot have everything, ami I have the picture of Hie rector's daughter as Lorna.”