PEOPLE OF A FAMOUS NOVEL

Hawera Star, Volume L, 29 July 1930, Page 9

PEOPLE OF A FAMOUS NOVEL

THE RIDDS TO LEAVE DOONB A-ALIBY:

Mr Thomas Ridd, descendant, of -‘Girt Jan Ridel,’’ who wooed*and' won the lo vely Lorn a Dpone, daughter of the wicked Doones of Exmoor, is to leave the historic Yenwoirthy Farm iu the parish of Oare, where his ancestors' tilled the land since men can- neinember.

Girt Jan Ridd’s ]oye story has been immortalised in K. D. Blackmore’s roc uiance “Lorna Dooiie,” in which it is stated' that the Ridds were ‘‘seised- in their own right erf the bast and largest of the Oare parish.” But now the family pays rent for what they hold in Oa.re_ and strangers will take possession of Yenworthy after Michaelmas. I made my way to-day over the rough moorland track near to where the old county gate divided Devon from Somerset and along the sunken bridal oath where: the marauding Doones, bent on pillage, had often trod- before mo (writes a correspondent 'of the ‘‘Sunday Express.”) "Arid I came at length to Yenworthy Farm, which overlooks the sparkling sea hundreds of feet, below. Mr Thomas Ridd was ploughing the historic soil for the last time. The long-barrelled, flintlock gun which Garvey Doone poked through the window o.f Oare Churxdi haiiigs on the wall of the old homestead. His pretty young wife and his two children a little Jan Ridd and a girl called! Lorna. stood at the doorway. But the story of the Doones and of Girt Jan Ridd* means nothing to Mr. Thomas Ridd. “It does not worry me. T. do not bother about it at all.” he said. -