MEETING IN ALEXANDRIA

Grey River Argus, 18 May 1943, Page 6

MEETING IN ALEXANDRIA

REPATRIATED N.Z. SOLDIER AND FIANCEE. (NZ.E.F. Official Correspondent) CAIRO, May 15. A despatch written from Alexandria on May 13 says: Waiting for a repatriated New Zealand soldier, Private Alfred Hope Mason, as he walked down the hospital ship gangway here this morning, was his fiancee. Pte. Ria Evelyn Claridge, New Zealand W.A.A.C.. whom he last saw in Wellington as he sailed for the Middle East nearly two years ago. Miss Claridge arrived in Egypt only a few weeks after Pte. Mason had been captured with a New Zealand dressing station during the Sidi Rezegh battle in the second Libyan campaign. Now a nurse in a New Zealand Base Hospital near Cairo, she was on leave at Alexandria when two hospital ships carrying over a hundred repatriated New Zealanders arrived from Turkey this morning. Shy and embarrassed by the curiocity of interested people about .her on the docks, Miss Claridge soon forget her self-consciousness Wien Pte. Mason stepped down the gangway. To cheers and applause from the docks and decks, they greeted each other fondly. Pte. Mason knew that his fiancee was in Egypt but was surprised to find her on the wharf waiting for him. Pte. Mason and Miss Claridge, who is a member of a well-known Wellington sporting family, are both from the Wellington district.