THREATENED BY LUNATIC

Evening Star, Issue 23373, 16 September 1939, Page 3

THREATENED BY LUNATIC

Major Dudley Larcombe, manager and secretary of the All-England Lawn Tennis Club, told Stanley N. Doust how he once had to humour an armed lunatic who entered his office and threatened to shoot him. It is no easy task, lie declared, to run a tournament like Wimbledon, with more than 30 nations represented. It calls for quick thinking and tact. One day he was alone in his office when lie heard a knock. “ ‘ Come in,’ ” I said, “ and a middle-aged man, well dressed, entered, carrying a loaded revolver. He pointed the revolver at me and demanded to see Miss Helen Wills (as she was then). I realised the man was » lunatic. He said, ‘I love Helen, and you will take me to her or I will shoot you.’ ‘That is easy,’ f said. ‘She is practising on one of the outside courts.’ As a matter of fact, Helen was not in England at the time. We went out. tlie man still pointing the revolver at me. We approached some workmen who, realising the position, overpowered the man. f later learned he was a lunatic who had escaped .from Shrewsbury.”