A WOMAN'S HOAX

Greymouth Evening Star, 30 December 1937, Page 10

A WOMAN'S HOAX

POSED AS CHILD. LONDON, November 20For four months 23-year-qld Mrs Terry Cohen, of Woolwich, London attended school as an pupil- Only when the headmistress decided to move her to a higher class and she ceased' attending was her hoax discovered —the school attendance officer went round to her home. The story of this amazing impersonation was told this week by the woman’s husband, Mr Edward Cofien. a 28-year-old wireless salesman. My wife’s real name is Terry, but I call her Chebby, the name she is known by at school. We were married at Stratford, E-, registry office in 1935, when she was 21. The registrar refused to believe her age, and we had to get her parents to confirm it-

“Our child was born a year ago, but it died after a few months. Chebby never quite recovered from its death. She used to go and play in the street with children, and in June this year she came and told me she had started going to the Union Street, Woolwich L.C.C., school as a junior pupil so that she could be with her little friends.

“At school she was known as my 11-year-old sister. When she did not attend, the school board inspector came and asked me why my sister bad stopped going. I did not know what to tell him, and' flow I have received a notice from the L.C.C. that legal action may be taken if she does not go back. Even now they do not suspect her real age.” Here his wife, nursing a doll, took up the story. “You see,” she said, “I have always loved being with young children. I left my home in Lancashire when I was 15 and came to

| London. I still -wore my school clothes and got a job as a nursemaid. Since then I have had other positions, but no one has ever guessed my real age. My husband would not believe it when I first met him, but-when we fell in love and decided to get married' he had to. I have always worn the same clothes ever since. When I go to school I take part in all the school games and lessons, and no one has ever queried my age. When I go ( home I do the housework and cooking. although- I don’t like it. and live like any normal wife."

Mrs Cohen has only one grown-up habit. She likes smoking cigarettes. "When I am at school I usually manage to slip home and have a. cigarette,” she said- "Once I tried to go to the pictures, but they said I was not eld enough. Now, when I go, my husband has to take me.”