"AN ABJECT FOOL."

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 216, 11 September 1940, Page 10

"AN ABJECT FOOL."

SISTER'S CONTEMPT. THE ROME RADIO COLONEL (By Air.) LOXOX, August 14. Lieutenant-Colonel Cyril Rocke, formerly of the Irish Guards and at one time aide-de-camp to the GovernorGeneral of Australia, is held in con- | tempt by his sister in England for his broadcast from Rome of Italian propaganda. His British Army pension, granted in 1920. has been withdrawn by the YVar Office, under a regulation that forbids retired officers to take service wi'.i a foreign country without permission of the Army Council. His sister is 7-">-year-old Miss May Daliymple Currie. While her brother! lues in Italy in well-to-do circum--taneecs with his wealthy American wife, she exists in poverty in a hamlet near Here Rej;is, Dorset, occupying one room of a cottage on an income of 9/ a week. Miss Currie comes of a family well known in Edinburgh, she explained this week. In the old days they were called "the fighting Curries," and Colonel hocke, who changed his name when a young man. himself had a fine record in the last war. He holds the D.S.O. and Croix de Guerre.

Cvril grew up to be a strong, impressive looking man. He was extremely i andsome and had a magnificent intelligence, Miss Currie said. "But he was autocratic in the extreme. Even as a cluld lie was intolerant; in his games he always wanted to be king of the castle, lor years he thought that only InrlJ j U arC b ° ni t0 FU,e " l thia *1 " everyone else is beneath contempt. In plain language, he him L g [ Cat swanker " 1 have not seen b i/,r n - years - when '"Other was bui led. It is a consolation to m e that she is not living. My father. Surgeon General (,eor«re Vernon Currie, is also lend. He gave distinguished service to In.- country, as did so maiiv of his ancestor* and I suppose you' must reno Af VI ! a f, <llfferent from the rest of us. My brother retired from the Armv when in his forties. It came as a shock to me when I learned that he had become a Fascist and was supporting the Mussolini regime. I have nothing •SotTj.™ b "' H « » *» Miss Currie in the last war held a senior po.ition in an Armv hospital and later in the W.A.A.C. Her view of thrash" Itilv' "j? r 'f ain win assuredly tinasli Italy and Germany."