4000 MILE DASH

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 10, Issue 57, 2 December 1946, Page 7

4000 MILE DASH

CANADIAN GOLD MINER WIFE SERIOUSLY ILL Carrying a huge bunch of chrysanthemums, Alfred Henderson, 24-year-old Canadian gold miner, walked into a private ward at Brighton Sanatorium. At first the girl did not recognise him. She was too ill. But after half an hour Mrs Margaret Henderson, bride of 15 months, stirred slightly and opened her eyes. .. “It’s Alf,” she murmured. Fpr an hour the couple sat holding hands. Then, when he had talked with the. doctor, Alfred said: “Thank God I got here in time. I would have arrived long ago had I known she was ill. “Her letters anil a cable did not reach me until two days ago.” It was two days earlier, at Du Parquet, Quebec, that Alfred' finally got the news. He went to the Canadian War Services Mission, asked: “Please help me.” They did. Within a few hours- he was at Montreal and aboard a plane for Britain. , Across the Atlantic his plane ran into bad weather. It could not land at Preswick, Scotland, and was diverted to Shannon Airport, in Eire. A quick breakfast, and Alfred was on his way tq London Airport. There a car was ready to take him to Brighton. It broke down twice on the road. “Everybody has been marvellously good to me,” said Alfred. “Someone even got me a big bunch of flowers.’* Mrs Henderson, ex-Waaf who met her husband while he was in the Canadian forces in’Britain, was to have sailed for Canada last February. She fell ill and her condition is still serious.