SAILOR'S ROMANCE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22991, 19 March 1938, Page 23

SAILOR'S ROMANCE

A LONG SEPARATION YOUNG GIRL AND APPRENTICE [from ouk own* con respondent] SYDNEY, Match 12 Years before the war, an apprentice sailor and a girl of 13 met in Newcastle. They parted and met again. The war separated them for 19 years. They were married in Sydney this week. The little girl became Sister Gladys Jordan, who, alter 26 years' nursing, gave up her post as deputy-matron of j Newcastle Hospital to marry Captain Archibald Stirling, from Glasgow, who retired from the British-India service as master more than ten years ago. "Archie was just' a littlo 'prentice lad 011 his first trip from Glasgow when I met him at Newcastle," said Mrs. Stirling. "1 was watching the ship come in. He was so excited at being in Australia that he came and asked me questions as soon as he got ashore. I took him homo because iny brother was in the Navy, and mother had a soft heart for young boys at sea. He was only 15 then, and we met every time his ship berthed at the Stockton wharves. In 1914 1 saw him once. Then the war came and he went 011 active service. 1 didn't see him again for 19 years. "He enme to live in Australia in 1921, and lie did everything he could to get in touch with me. But it wasn't till 1933 that he heard anything of me. Then a friend told him that I was still single. He found me a month later." Captain and Mrs. Stirling plan tof spend at least the first years of tneir married life in a trailer, caravan. "I've heard so much about foreign lands that I want to see a littlo of my own first," said Mrs. Stirling.