SECRET WEDDING

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 4045, 19 April 1932, Page 7

SECRET WEDDING

BIG GAME HUNTER AND HIS WIFE ENGLISH PEER'S DAUGHTER Additional details of the story of her secret marriage on January 29, at Nairobi, Kenya, East Africa—some particulars of which were given recently—wore related to the ‘ Daily Mail ’ correspondent a few days after the ceremony by Airs Rattray, formerly Miss Avenll Furness. -Mrs Rattray, who is twenty-three years of age, said that she and her husband, Air R. A. Rattray, the big game hunter, had not then heard from her father, Lord Furness, who was up country, but they said they were not perturbed by his announcement published on the previous day in the newspapers terminating Air Rattray’s services as white hunter to his big-game hunting expedition. Air and Mrs Rattray and the interviewer sat by the fireside and discussed the position at the residence near Nairobi of Major and Airs Patterson, with whom they were staying. Airs Rattray cut up plug tobacco and filled ids pipe while we talked. His wife declared that her decision to marry him was taken quite suddenly in the course of a dinner at the Torrs Hotel in Nairobi on the evening before the wedding. On the previous day she had said good-bye to Lord Furness and left for Nairobi, accompanied by Air Rattray, who was to make arrangements for her to sail for England from Alombassa on the Alonday; On the way to Nairobi, however, AJiss Furness decided that nothing would induce her to return to England, where she had met Air Rattray two years ago and fallen in love with him. Indeed, she said, her sole reason for accompanying Lord Furness on his present visit to Kenya was her wish to see Air Rattray again. The matter had never been mentioned to Lord Furness, nor was there any intention of their being married when his daughter left Lortl Furness’s camp. When, however, they suddenly decided to marry, they obtained a special license and the wedding took place the next day. They did not inform Lord Furness, and they had received no communication from him since the marriage, but they gathered from the newspaper advertisement that he was not pleased. Air Rattray himself was most indignant about the advertisement. He described it to me as mean and petty, but declared: “ It will not do us any harm. My reputation in this country is quite unassailable, and we are not worrying about it.” Airs Rattray said that if her husband allowed her she would accompany him on every big-game hunt he undertakes. That day, she said, she had received a long telegram from her step-mother, Lady Furness, in England, congratulating'’ her and wishing her every happiness.

Air Rattray is very proud of his wife’s prowess as a shot, and Airs Rattray, who is only twenty-three, related delightedly how she had bagged her first lion with a first shot a few days previously. “ I hope to get many more,” she said.