GAY LIFE ENDED

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 53, Issue 3794, 12 August 1936, Page 6

GAY LIFE ENDED

£30,000 SPENT IN TWO YEARS. Lady Rosemary Cassidy, younger daughter of the late Earl of Lathom, claims to be the unluckiest woman in the world. She inherited a fortune of £30,000. That vanished in two years. She had three broken engagements. Her husband, Mr. Vincent Cassidy, died shortly after their marriage. To-day Lady Rosemary lives in one modest bed-sitting room in Kensington, London, and does her own cooking and housework. “There is no sorrow that is new to me,” she says, “no grief which has not touched me.” In a low, detached voice, as though she was relating someone else’s story, she told the Sunday Graphic of her fight against bad luck. “I was presented at Court when I was 18. At the age of 21 I came into £30,000 —which was more money than was good for me. I took a flat in town and gave lavish parties. In two and a half years I had spent all my inheritance. I thought nothing of spending £5O on a party. I haunted the more expensive night clubs, and wasted a fabulous sum on clothes which I tired of after two or three wearings. “There were two restaurants which kept a table always ready for me, and as I walked into the foyer of either of them they would automatically put a magnum of champagne on ice. I bought four cars in a few months. One cost £3OO0 —the next one I bought was a second-hand baby car for £3O. I was broke.

“I married Mr. Vincent Cassidy, whom I had known for five years. But my happiness was short-lived. I had been a widow a year when my engagement was announced to an actor, but that also was broken by mutial consent. '

“When my inheritance went I tried to carry on, but eventually had to go back to my family. I even pawned my wedding ring. My ambition is to retire quietly to the country and have a small garden.

“I have the round of the night clubs, but now my ideal life is not night clubs, but nightingales! “To-day I live in a modest way on £2 15s a week, and get a great thrill out of doing my own housework and cooking. Life can hurt me no more because of a new philosophy of life I have evolved through weeks spent on a sick bed.

“I think I am the unluckiest woman in the world—but I have hope. At any moment my luck will change. I am now nearly 33, and I believe the next 10 or 20 years are going to be the best in my life. After all the experiences I have had /there is still a great deal left for me to learn and enjoy—and enjoy thoroughly.”