WOMAN’S PLUCK.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 30 December 1926, Page 7

WOMAN’S PLUCK.

BROUGHT YACHT HOMK AND 1)1 HD. LONDON, Oct. Iff. •| will hriii<£ the yacht home or die in the attempt." I'h i - message was telegraphed by Miss I l '. O. Knowles-Foster. F.R.G.8., tac novelist., of Tapestry Hall. Old Windsor, to some ftiemls alter she had licen tiling down the hatch ol her nineton motor-yacht Enchantress a converted naval pinnace 30 years old —in a storm while on a voyage from Stockholm to England during the summer. Sfio was fated to do both. On Thursday n iglit she died at lier Old Windsor ii-oine. "is a resell of the injuries she received during the stormy voyage, despite the efforts of specialists from London. When she reached Windsor, at the end of September, she collapsed. Her heart and nerves had been sadly afiected. while she had torn an arm muscle and broken a linger when she fell down the ha fcc-h. During a long period ol the voyage the yacht was badly buffeted, and at one time Miss Knowles-Foster lashed let self to the mast. Despite her painful injuries, she insisted on herseli bringing the yacht on the last stage of its journey up the Thames to Windsor. a remarkable feat. Within a few hour.s of leaving the Enchantress on its return to London Miss Knowles-Foster felt certain that a serious illness was approaching. She faced it bravely and discussed her will. With what I have, she told a Dailv Mail reporter at the time, I want to found a home for poor gentlefolk. They are the people whom nobody thinks of in these days. They are the innocent parties in every dispute, who get the buffets from both sides. Have you looked round my Tapestrv Hall ? 1 would like it to pass to poor gentlefolk, and 1 think it can be arranged. When I acquired it. it was the shell of a building erected to encourage the art of tapes-try-making in this country. It was part of a royal scheme started in Victorian days. The almost Eastern charm of hor quaint home showed her artistic leanings. On an easel lacing her liali door aopeared the words: •‘Ask not for my money, not for my hand in marriage, and you will be my good friend. —Queen. Elizabeth.” Miss Knowlcs-Faster was accompanied on her last voyage by her 64-year scld uncle. Commander Derwent Simntonds, and a youth.

She took the yacht to Stockholm last year, and on that voyage she also met with some very lough weather and narrowly escaped being wrecked. She brought* the yacht back through the Baltic and across the North sea. The yacht was comfortably fitted, and the dinner service and drinking cups were of mother-of-pearl. Miss Knowles-Foster usually slept under a tiger skin.