BUILDING OWN HOME.

Waikato Times, Volume 109, Issue 18350, 9 June 1931, Page 5

BUILDING OWN HOME.

KNIGHT’S DAUGHTER AS BRICKLAYER. On a slope of the Downs near Leatlierhead, Surrey, overlooking Ranmore Common, Miss Marion Duckham, daughter of Sir Arthur Duckham, pre-sident-elect of the Federation of British Industries, is building the home where she will live after her marriage this month, says an English exchange. Miss Duckham is employing her own workmen; driving truckloads of material; loading and unloading hundreds of bricks a day; helping to lay bricks; giving a hand with the carpentry, and supervising the whole construction. Mr Winston Churchill, whose hobby of bricklaying is well known, may visit the site and give a helping hand. When a reporter visited the estate a battered truck piled high with bricks drove up. Miss Duckham jumped lightly from the driving seat, a workmanlike figure in blue blouse, leather jacket, tweed shirt, beret and —a typically feminine touch —with a gold anklet twinkling through tier silk stockings. She pulled on a pair of huge loather gloves and, with tho help of half a dozen men, began unloading the bricks. "This is nothing," she said, when asked if she did not find the work tiring. "There are only a few hundred bricks here. My record so far is 4000 in a single day." "Yes,” corroborated her foreman, “Four thousand bricks in one day, and they weighed every ounce of ten tons." Miss Duckham loaded and unloaded them. "I must admit I wa? a little tired that night," she said. "After our engagement was announced," stie went on, “my fiance and I began thinking about a homo. We wanted to see what we could do, and to save somelhlng. So we bought tills piece of land, engaged the men and started in. It’s amazing how much cheaper it is to do the work yourself." The plans of Ihe house were drawn up bv Lady Duckham, who is the daughter of an artist, and Miss Duckham's younger brother lias undertaken to do Ihe electric wiring when the time comes.