AIRMAN'S ROMANCE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22839, 21 September 1937, Page 9

AIRMAN'S ROMANCE

DAUGHTER OF COUNTESS MR. MOLLISON'S REVELATIONS LONDON, Sept. 13 Marriage with Lady Diana "Wellesley (now Lady Dixon), great-grand-daughter of the Duke of Wellington, was contemplated by Mr. James Mollison, well-known airman, before he married Miss Amy Johnson, from whom he is now estranged. This is among a number of intimate disclosures which are made by Mr. Mollison in his book, "Playboy of the Air." He adds:—"l could have offered her adventure enough to satisfy the blood or the great Wellington." But Lady Diana Wellesley's mother, Countess Cowley disapproved of the proposed marriage.

"As a flying companion I would still choose Amy, but, unfortunately, the woman you pick.for a dangerous enterprise is not always the one you get along with afterwards," says Mr. Mollison. The airman discloses that before the "fatal luncheon" at which he proposed to his wife neither had considered marrying the other. He says his engagement followed the breaking off of a year's trial engagement with Lady Diana Wellesley, then aged 18 years, to which Countess Cowley was resolutely opposed. The countess believed that her daughter was too young and inexperienced to decide. Mr. Mollison adds: "Looking back, who can blame her for her attitude when considering me as a prospective son-in-law?"

The airman declares that he was nauseated by the countess' catechism about his prospects. "Nevertheless," he adds, "but for the fact that I married Amy I think my wife's name would probably have been Diana." Mr. Mollison admits that he has been "scared stiff" on certain occasions, but ho overcame his fear sometimes by "drinking alcohol in a big way." He refers to the mutual intolerance which occurred in tho early months of his marriage. He adds: "It was humiliating to bo semi-publicly catechised for my late hours and belated appearances." Replying to the comments by Mr. Mollison about her daughter and herself, Countess Cowley, in an interview published in the Daily Mail, said: "I was not being snobbish. Any mother in my position would have done the same. "Diana and Mr. Mollison lived in two entirely different worlds. I did not want hers to be wrecked. I was not disagreeable and liastv to Mr. Mollison. I was prepared to give them a chance, and told thetu to wait a year, meet each other's friends, and then, if they loved each other, 1 could hardly hold out. Now, thank heaven, Diana is happily and comfortably married." Lady Diana married a Guardsman, Mr. Daniel Dixon, in July, 1923. Mr. Dixon is now aide-de-camp to the general commanding Northern Ireland.