GRETNA GREEN STORY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20982, 19 September 1931, Page 3 (Supplement)

GRETNA GREEN STORY.

YOUNG COUPLE'S ROMANCE. BRIDE OF SEVENTEEN. A young English couple's cloptment to Gretna Green, and their return to Gateshead, their home, as a married couple, were features of a romance which, in July, had a dramatic development. "My girl is only 17 and needed my consent. Therefore the marriage is not legal," the mother of tho bride stated. She also alleged that the young couple had not resided the statutory 21 days preceding the marriago in Scotland. Tho principals in this story aro tho bride, Miss Ivy Joicey, aged 17, the pretty daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Joicey, of Gateshead, the bridegroom, Mr. Albert Stanley Davison, aged 24, of Low Fell, and two well-wishers who acted as witnesses at the anvil ceremony, Mr. and Mis. Mason, of Gateshead. When the attention of Mr. Rennison, tho Gretna blacksmith, was directed to the statements made by the bride's mother, he said:—-"The bridegroom led me to believfe that lie had resided for 21 days preceding the marriage in Scotland. Otherwise I should not have performed the ceremony." Mr. Rennison stated that the couple after first presenting themselves at the anvil and learning of tho legal requirements, returned a month later, and went through the ceremony. "Our parents knew we were courting, but marriage was never mentioned," Mr. Davison, who is an unemployed chauffeur, said after the return from Gretna. "When we went to Gretna Green early in June with our witnesses our parents thought we were on a holiday. "When we found we had to reside there for a month we stayed with an aunt of mine in Clackmannan. Even she did not know we were there to get married. We had decided to keep it secret fur a month or two and then tell our families."