SECRET REVEALED

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 149, 26 June 1931, Page 11

SECRET REVEALED

ACTRESS’ SEA SERVICE. After sixteen years it is revealed that Miss Nancy Price, the famous actress, recently appearing in the Lou- j don West End in Galsworthy’s “Silver ] Box,” served at sea in the war disguised as a man. “I discovered her secret for the first ( time recently,” writes a Sunday Dispatch correspondent, “when turning over some old photographs in a scrap s book I came across a snapshot of her in sea rig. ‘Oh! that is nothing,’ she • said when asked the meaning for the . disguise, and then with some reluctance admitted that she saw service at sea , early in 1914. Very few people even j now know of it, she said. For six months I was engaged in a war boat j doing dangerous work around the coasts of England. I was disguised as a man, and no one except the skipper, an old friend of my father’s, guessed my identity. Every day we were at sea . we were face to face with death, yet j the crew, fine fisher types of the east coast, were tho most cheerful folk 1 have ever encountered. They were 1 simple and unsophisticated, but rough 1 and daring. “From the age of five years Miso , Prince has known and loved the sea. In her father’s yacht In pre-war days she ' had explored every corner of the North Bea, and had herself navigated the yacht on trips as far as Norway. She was therefore no novice when she presented herself at Harwich to the commander of the war boat who had for years been the skipper of her father’s yacht. “Crew Called Me ‘Bill.’ ’’ “The ‘Old Man,’ who had been a fisherman in the off season, at first demurred—at sea in wartime was no place for a woman—but knowing her calibre and her knowledge of the sea. he at length consented. “It was agreed, said .Miss Prince, that I was to join the ship ns the skipper’s boy. 1 had sailed before in a blazer and trousers, so male dress was nothing new to me. My presence did not attract very much attention. The crew treated me as one of themselves and called me Bill. My first duty was cleaning up and doing odd jobs about the ship, assisted by other members of the crew. They did not suspect for a moment that I was a married woman with four children at home, and they talked freely to me of their wives and little ones. They rarely spoke of the dangers they were daily encountering, and when they mentioned death thex referred to something that camo t>» other men and not to them. 1 think that was the dominant, feeling of those who took part in tho war, that ot fatalism, an attitude that protected them from thinking too much of tho dangers that encompassed them con tinually. “Sometimes 1 got the wind up rather badly, but I did not say anything about it. I discovered that hard work is a great solvent of fears, and goodness knows 1 hud plenty to do. Every now and then I went ashore on I leave. The skipper used to give me a i big eoat, in which I walked to an hotel i and changed into women’s attire before returning to my family and friends. Back to the Stage. ••Miss Prince agreed that one of the I most vivid recollections of her sea ex i perience was one morning when she saw looming through the mist the* Hogue. Aboukir, and tho ‘ reey return-| ing after tho Battle of Heligoland j Bight. It was an unforgettable spectacle. for the great ships bore the marks of tho tight with their decks still cleared. Miss Prince after leaving the Navy worked among soldiers blinded in tho war. They were different types entirely from the hardy sailor folk, but she discovered one remarkable thing about them. Men recently blinded developed a most acute sense of smell—so remarkable, indeed, that while walking along a road they could distinguish between an oak and an elm by smell alonp. Miss Prince's old skip

per friend sometimes comes to London to see her. He watched her play ir ‘Down Our Street,’ and recognised the old tweed cap she wore as the one she had when sl’e was -crsiig in hi- war boat.'' ,