MARRIAGES AT GRETNA GREEN

Southland Times, Issue 23740, 11 February 1939, Page 13

MARRIAGES AT GRETNA GREEN

By

G. C. L.

Mr Walter Elliot, when : Secretary of State for Scotland, i presented in the British House of ’ Commons a Bill making it neces- ‘ sary for all marriages in Scot- j j land to take place in a registry i office if not in a church. It 1 means the end, after 184 years, ' of the runaway marriages "over the anvil” in the famous border i town of Gretna Green. —News • item. 1

LONDON. SN the early morning I left the ■ the old historic town of Carl- ' isle and passed a new military aerodrome bustling with life and crossed over the border that has ■ seen so many stirring and bloody ■ deeds and came into a famous village called Gretna Green, that sprawls along the border and has seen more real life stories of young love and romance than any other place in the world. Young love, and romance, and lots of heartbreak and humour as well. When evening came I had helped a runaway bride to get married—one of the 50,000 runaway brides who have come to Gretna Green during its 150 years of romance. I had learned that there never was such a thing as a Gretna Green blacksmith who married people over an anvil. I had seen a young couple who didn’t know the rules of Gretna Green and had to go back to England in tears. I had heard the rival “blacksmiths” abusing each other. I had had lunch in Gretna Hall, where over 1000 English aristocrats have been married and had talked to the man who has performed 2800 marriages over his anvil. When evening came I had heard tawdry and beautiful things about- this Gretna Green, whose romance is soon to end. Gretna Green sprawls along the frontier between England and Scotland and in the distance are the blue hills of Cumberland. It is on the ancient highroad between Glasgow and London. I dropped from a bus and walked down a quiet lane where birds were singing and came to Gretna Hall. In the grounds I met a little blonde Jewess whose, name turned out to be Marjorie Moscowitch. We walked across the 1 rough paving stones of the old, bld courtyard where so many stage-coaches had stopped -with a clatter long ago. “Do people still come here to be married?” I asked. “Yes,” said Marjorie Moscowitch, “that’s why I have come.” And with the eagerness of young love in distress, she poured Out her story. But go back for a moment. Go back a century and a-half, to the days when runaway lovers from England first started clattering up the great north road—often with irate, parents in pursuit, as still happens today—to be married without benefit of clergy on the other side of the ancient border. “How far, how far to Gretna, ’tis years and years away,” runs the ballad, “and chaise-and-four will nevermore fling dust across the day.” But why did they ever start coming here? “Well, it was like this,” explained David Ramsay Macintosh, proprietor of Gretna. Hall .and ..chief “priest” of Gretna today! “In • the year 1754 the English Parliament passed a law making it illegal for minors to get married without the consent of their parents. So they started coming to Scotland. That’s all.” Not A Real Blacksmith 'T’HAT is still the law in England. No man or woman under 21 can be married without parental permission. But in Scotland anyone over the age of 16 can marry whether daddy says yes or no. Moreover, in Scotland to this day you can be married simply by declaring the fact in the presence of two witnesses. And that is why, for 184 years,: thwarted young lovers from England’have been taking the road to Gretna Green. It was made harder for them in 1856 when another Act was passed making it necessary for one party to the marriage to have resided three weeks in Scotland. “And lots of people still don’t know about that law,” said David Macintosh. “Not a week passes without some excited young couple bursting in and wanting to be married at once. When they learn about the '2l days rule they are heartbroken. Perhaps their parents are in pursuit. Perhaps they haven’t enough, money to-stay that long. Or perhaps they change their minds. Two months ago a couple came by aeroplane. : Learning of the rules, they did what most others do and decided to stay at Gretna Hall. Before half the three weeks was oyer they were quarrelling—and the marriage was off.” By aeroplane! I wonder what Lord Archibald Drumlauring would say from his grave if he knew that lovers now came to Gretna by plane. He . came here in 1840, running away with a general’s daughter named Caroline Clayton. They rode horseback the 300 miles from London with some of General Clayton’s officers on their trail. The records prove that they made the ride in three days. One hundred miles a day, never sleeping, and stopping only to change horses. They were married two hours before the

officers got there. I asked why blacksmiths did the marrying at Gretna, and why they did it over an anvil. “There has never been a real blacksmith,” said Mr Macintosh. “It was always done by the proprietors of Gretna Hall until 50 years ago. The blacksmith and anvil idea simply comes from an old Gretna inn which had an anvil as its sign. The while thing is really quite a racket, you know! Lots of young couples seem to think there’s some special dispensation in Gretna allowing people to be married, when the fact is that anyone in Scotland could do it. I have a rival ‘blacksmith’ just across the road. He and I both know that • most people come here just for the romance of the thing, and we don’t mind. We make good money.” The rival blacksmith is an Englishman named Richard Rennison. He started up business at the old Gretna smithy in 1927 and since then he has performed over 2800 weddings over his anvil. Mr Macintosh also marries his clients over an anvil. Both anvils have painted signs claiming to be the real, authentic, Gretna marrying anvil. “Which is the authentic one?” I asked.

“Neither ” smiled Mr Macintosh. “Or both, whichever you like.” , - The genuine old wedding room, he said, and this is true, is in Gretna Hall. For 184 years people have been coming to Gretna Hall to be wed. It’s only in recent times that people have thought up the anvil idea. “The young folk have set their hearts on being married over an anvil,” said Macintosh, “so why not marry them over an anvil? They’re really married when they make the declaration in the wedding room of the Hall. But when that’s done, I take them out for what they think is the real ceremony.” He took me out to the old stone coaching stables which have seen so many exciting scenes as coaches came in from the south. Sure enough, there was a blacksmith working there picturesquely, making souvenir horse shoes. “When I get him trained,” said

Macintosh, “I’ll have him do the marrying. But so far he’s too shy.” I held hands with little Marjorie Moscowitch over the famous anvil and the priest of Gretna showed us how the weddings are performed. The ceremony takes 60 seconds. The bride and groom' first sign the forms declaring they wish to be married and that one of them has been in Scotland 21 days. Then they repeat the declaration over the anvil, repeating the words after the “priest,” David Macintosh. The Gretna marriages don’t become fully legal until the newly-weds have registered at the sheriffs office in the nearby town of Dumfries, and there too they must make their declaration on oath. “Why then do they bother coming to Gretna at all?” I asked. “Romance,” said Mr Macintosh. “None of them have ever grasped the simple thing that you have grasped—that Gretna weddings are to some extent superfluous. Even if they knew it they still would come. And why not? Seeing they have to come to Scotland, why not be wed at Gretna with romance ?” Only last week, he said, a man of 70 came to Gretna Hall to be married with a 68-year-old woman. Both of them were .unmarried, but had been close friends for 30 years. “We decided to get married so that we could be companions in the evening of our days,” they told the innkeeper. “But we are too old for a church wedding and we dreaded a cold registry office wedding. Then one of us thought of Gretna Green.” “There were tears in my eyes afterwards,” said Mr Macintosh, “especially when the lady said: ‘Your ceremony is rather primitive, but you conducted it with dignity and beauty.’ ” Twenty-one Days’ Wait A MONTH ago a lieutenant from the King’s Own Scottish Borderers was married in Gretna without his commanding officer’s consent, said the priest. He had to leave the army. and he went with his bride to Australia. And I wish I could reproduce the exact words with which David Macintosh told me the story of the Jewess and the angry aunt. “Her name was Iris Ades, daughter of a wealthy Jew in London,” he said. “She came here two months ago and stayed at' Gretna Hall the necessary 21 days. Her lover arrived at night ,on the 21st day—and when he got off the train he saw his uncle waiting for him. Together they came to the Hall. ‘l’m glad I got here in time'to stop this wedding,’ he roared. ‘Just give me something to eat before I tick off those two young people.’ So the waiter cooked some poached eggs and. toast for him, and while he was eating it I married the young couple! Imagine the old man’s face when I told him the news. . . . Next day the angry aunt arrived, and a dozen reporters and photographers came from London by plane. You should have seen the aunt trying to break down the door of the bridal chamber. The young ’uns didn’t dare to show their faces for two days.” Gretna Hall sees many scenes like that, he added; and he looked kindly at 18-year-old Marjorie Moscowitch, who was impatiently counting her 21 days. “There are lots of Jewish girls like me in London,” she said, “girls who want to marry boys, Gentiles, and are prevented by their families. Our people just hate intermarriage with Gentiles. That’s because we are so arrogant and believe we are so superior. But we young ones, Jews and Gentiles, are tired of the old beliefs.” Custom.To Be Stopped T)AVID MACINTOSH showed me the great register containing the records of the 1134 marriages which have taken place in Gretna Hall since 1825. Some 50,000 runaway marriages have been made at Gretna Green altogether. I turned over the pages and looked at the names—and sometimes I could almost hear the hoofs of galloping horses and the rattle of stage-coach wheels. There was Captain Park Ibbetson who eloped to Gretna Green in 1844 with Lady Lucy Villiers, daughter of the Earl of Jersey, and granddaughter of the Earl and Countess of Westmorland, who themselves had run away to Gretna when young. Ibbetson and his lady love galloped to Gretna with the Earl of Jersey hot in pursuit. The old boy arrived just as the ceremony was over. There was a real prince, Carlo Ferdinando Bourbon, brother of the king of Naples. He ran away to Gretna in 1846 with a beautiful Irish girl named ! Penelope Cariline Smythe. There was ' another Italian nobleman, the Duke of \ Sforza, who married Caroline Shirley of Chartley Castle. There was the Lord Drumlauring I Have mentioned. There was Edward Gibbon Wakefield, who ' later went to Canada as secretary to ' Lord Durham. : “I could tell you some tales,” mused David Macintosh. “Tell me some,” I I suggested. “Well” he said, “there was t a sad case two weeks ago. A young • man was here passing his 21 days and ■ waiting for his girl. But he fell in l love with one of the village girls. So > he married her, and didn’t even tell I the other girl, and when she arrived ‘ her lover was gone. A pretty little ■ thing, only 17.” A short time ago a former Follies girl . Nina Pierson, surprised her Mayfair [ friendg by dashing to Gretna Green by • aeroplane one night hnd marrying Percy i M. St. George Kirk, a Scottish land-

owner. A strange complication has arisen out of that elopement. Her lawyers in the United States have told her that she is still married to Paul Leviton, her first husband, because divorce papers which she had thought were through had not yet been completed. Yes, there have been many romantic things and some tawdry things, but now it is all to end. The Government thinks Gretna Green weddings do more harm than good. It is found that 75 per cent, of the couples who marry there today never go to Dumfries to be registered. That means their weddings are only partly legal, and endless complications set in. So, soon a law will be passed changing the ancient Scottish custom and making it necessary for all weddings to take place in a registry office if not in a church. And then Gretna Green will become a legend. It seemed appropriate, too, as I passed the new R.A.F. aerodrome on the frontier and heard the great bombers droning over Gretna and realized thht a new age had begun.