MAYFAIR TO WORKMOUSE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXX, 25 November 1936, Page 2

MAYFAIR TO WORKMOUSE

TWICE MARRIED DAUGHTERS OF PEERS SEEKS WORK AS JOBBING CARPENTER (By Air Mail—From A Special Correspondent) LONDON, 7th November. An ex-public schoolboy and Army officer who has twice married the daughters of peers, and is now son-in-law to lord Bethell, millionaire property owner, has just left Fordingbridge workhouse in Hampshire. In ragged, torn overalls, with a bag of tools over his shoulder, he is tramping between builders’ oflies asking for work as a carpenter. The man from the workhouse is Capain Clive Harrison Martyn, M.C. and his wife, the Hon. Phyllis Bethell, third daughter of Lord Bethell, is well known in London society. She has just returned from a visit to New York. In 1925 Captain Martyn was married in St, George’s, Hanover Square, to Vera Pearle Jessel, second daughter of Lord Jessel. She died in 1928. This week in the back room of a labourer’s cottage at Ringwood, Captain Martyn, M.C. out-of-work builder’s carpenter, told the strange story of his life during the fast four years from his house in Mayfair to the Labour Exchange queues of the south coast. “I left the Army in 1920 went to India, where I worked in the jute trade until 1928, earning a little more than £1,500 a year. “In 1928 my first wife died, and I came back to England and was district superintendent to the old London General Omnibus Company, Barking District. For a time, too, I was secretary to Lord Ashfield. “Up to 1933 I lived very comfortably, a car, a flat in town, everything I wanted. Then I married any present wife, Phyllis, Lord Bethell’s daughter by special' licence. “In June that year I lost my job and the fun began. “You have no idea how hal’d it is to get a job. I went to Labour Exchanges. I was not going to ask my father-in-law for a job. “I noticed that day after day they were asking for bricklayers and carpeuters at the exchanges. “So I took a chance, paid £2O for a bag of carpenter’s tools and applied. Well, I got several jobs, anything from building pigsties to bird cages for old ladies’ canaries. “Wherever I am, whatever I am doing, my wife comes and stays with me from March to September each year. But during the winter she is not with me. ‘■‘l never know anything more of her during the winter period but what I read in the newspapers. She was with me up to six weeks ago —now I see she lias just been to America.”