Playboy’s Broken Marriage Mollison And Amy Johnson

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20863, 20 October 1937, Page 14

Playboy’s Broken Marriage Mollison And Amy Johnson

“AS a flying companion I would still choose Amy, but unfortunately the woman you would pick for a dangerous enterprise is not always the one you can get along with afterwards.” Thus James Mollison in his book, “Playboy of the Air,” which describes much of his flying life and the failure of his marriage with Amy Johnson. He discloses that before “the fatal luncheon” at which he proposed to Amy, neither of them had considered marrying each other. He reveals that their engagement followed the breaking off of a year’s trial engagement to the 18-year-old Lady Diana Wellesley, a great-granddaughter of the Duke of Wellington. Her mother, the Countess of Cowley, had sternly opposed this marriage, believing that her daughter was too young and inexperienced to decide. Adventure Enough. Mollison adds, “Looking back, who can blame her for her attitude when considering me as a prospective son-in-law?” Nevertheless, he declares he was nauseated by the Countess’ catechism regarding his prospects, and adds, “but for the fact I had married Amy, I think my wife’s name would probably have been Diana. “I could have offered her adventure enough to satisfy even the blood of the Great Wellington.” Mollison admits being “scared stiff” on certain occasions, but overcame his fear, sometimes by drinking alcohol “in a big way.” Affair With Russian. Mollison says he did not experience in Amy’s company the ectasy which was his during “the most genuine affair” of his life with a Russian girl on the Riviera. He complains that when he returned from Singapore Amy gave him a weekend before flying to the Cape. He asks: “Can you imagine quiet domestic bliss with a woman liable thus to desert the hearth?” He refers to mutual intolerance during the early months of their marriage, adding, “It is humiliating to be semi-publicly catechised for late hours and belated appearances.” Countess “Not Snobbish.” “I was not being snobbish!” said the Countess of Cowley when interviewed by the Daily Mail. “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 or nasty, but was prepared to give them a chance. 1 told them to wait a year and meet each other’s friends. If then they loved each other I would hardly hold out. “Now, thank heaven, Diana is happily and comfortably married.” Diana married a Guardsman, Daniel Dixon, who is at present an aide-de-camp to the general commanding in Northern Ireland. Amy Johnson’s Viewpoint. Amy Johnson (Mrs. “Jimmy” Mollison) in an article in the Daily Mail gives the real facts of her romance and rift with Mollison. She writes after having read his new book “Playboy of the Air.” “So much of what he says about me is untrue that I am amazed that he never apparently knew me better,” she declares. “I prefer to attribute his imag-

inatlve inaccuracies to his excessively rosy dreams.” She accuses him of trying to “debunk” life’s sweet illusions, and says she did not belong to the “Socialite” Mayfair world in which he moved with a carefree smile. She envied his invitations from everyone. “He taught me almost all I know about the ‘big, bad world,’ ” she avers. “On his advice, I scrapped the whole of ay wardrobe and bought only black and white, as he told me it suited me best. I was even married in black.” Mrs. Mollison tells how she lived lavishly, bought furs and jewellery, went to the best hairdressers and a l everything a normal woman would do to make herself attractive to the man ..he loves. “Out of My Shell ” “I became a sophisticated, smart woman of the world, and shall always be grateful to him for pulling me out of mi shell,” she adds. The rift in their married life began with the crash on their second attempt to fly the Atlantic in 1933. She was delayed in a nursing home, while Mollison went to Bermuda. Thus they started h j holidays apart, Mollison taking a world voyage and she attempting the Cape record. “I missed him a great deal more than I cared to own,” she says. Later, knowing that the end was near, the two decided to finish on a friendly note, taking a holiday together. She had no idea that he planned another Atlantic flight. Returning to London, she quietly and firmly told him to pack and move elsewhere until she could get a divorce. She asked him later to give a statement to the Press about their separation. He promised to do so, but she did not see him again. “Tills Awful Brick.” It was untrue to suggest that she “threw this awful brick at poor Jim’s head” on the eve of his Atlantic flight. She had felt she could stand in such c. false position no longer, and so seized an opportunity to make everything clear, never thinking of the excitement this would cause in the United States just as “Jim” was beginning his flight.