SECRET SORROWS

Greymouth Evening Star, 1 May 1937, Page 13

SECRET SORROWS

FATE OF MUSICIANS. Love of music was the common possession of Molly Grace O’Halloran, aged 29, and Henry James Berly, aged 31. Their friends said they had genius. Both- nursed a secret sorrow, and though they never met both ended their lives on the same day. The inquests on the two musicians were held on March 30 (says the “Daily Express”). When a chance to appear with a first-class orchestra came to Molly O’Halloran, of Rosslyn Hill, Hampstead, some months ago, she accepted with high hope of success. The engagement was hundreds of miles away from home, but she went and her was excellent. According to her father she was naturally anxious to be friendly, but she became the victim of a great deal of unkindness at the hands of her colleagues. She wrote to her mother: “They are killing me with their unkindnesses. Their treatment is cruel.” At parties her colleagues would say: “Well, wouldn’t you like to go and sit alone at-another table?” Or when they went out for walks: "We don’t want you, Molly.” One day she told her father: “I am going to kill myself.” The day before Good Friday she was found dead at home with her head in a gas oven. A verdict of “Suicide while of unsound mind” was returned.

Mr. Frederick Ralph O’Halloran, the father, told the coroner: “I was asked if she had had any love affairs. Absurd. She had hopeless affairs in the sense that she was in love with beauty and truth. She was not content with merely playing the piano, the viola, and so on. She could compose; she covered the whole held of music. She had not only talent, but, I am certain, genius.”

GIFTED VIOLA PLAYER. Because he thought all his hard work to become a gifted viola player had gone for naught, Henry James Berly threw himself under a tube train at Oval Station. Mr. Thomas William Hulbert, of Rickmansworth, a solicitor, told the Southwark coroner that he had known Berly for twelve years. He was a man of genius.

Mr. Hulbert said that Berly, who came to stay with him on March 22, had been suitering from insomnia. The coroner (Mr. A. Douglas Cowburn): To put it shortly, it appeared to you that he was thoroughly unstrung and miserable owing to the state of his health?—Exactly. Mr. Hulbert added that on Wednesday, March 2t, Berly dined with him, and then suggested the cinema. “During the performance,” said Mr. Hulbert, “he tapped mo on the shoulder and said. ‘I should like a little fresh air, and I think I shall go for a short walk. I will come back, but if I don’t, you will liud me at home when vou get there."

. Mr. Hulbert said that when he returned after the performance Berly

was not at home. He had taken the 10.38 train to London. Sergeant Prigg said that, among the man's belongings he found "a last will and testament" dated March 25. The coroner said a physician reported that Berly was very introspective, temperamental, full of self-pity and remorse. and was obviously suffering from neurasthenia. Berly took a penny ticket and acted on a sudden impulse as people in that condition often did.