He'll Wed Girl He's Never Seen

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 65, 3 April 1937, Page 18

He'll Wed Girl He's Never Seen

WOOED BY MAIL FOR 13. YEARS It was only a blot on a letter — but it Etarted a great romauce between the eook and the soldier. Lance-Corporal Mandeville Rogers has spent lSi years m the British Army. For the last, 17 years ' he has been' been abroad with the- 2nd Royal Sus-' eex Regiment. Now he has arrived in England, drawn back by something stronger even than his pronounced dislike of his own country. He is in love with a woman he has never seen, although for 13 years he has corresponded with her. So he has come to marry her within the next few months. "I dislike England," Lance-corporal Rogers told a reporter at Raglan Barracks, Devonport, where he is stationed. "lf it had not been for my impending marriage I would not have come back. "Our romance started in 1923. One

day I received a letter from a friend. There was a big blpt on the paper with a . marginal . note saying that the cook was responsible. "I wrote a jocular letter to the cook. That started it, and we have written ever since. ; "I will see her next week for the first time when I start my leave." . He lives at Hampstead. His fiancee is Miss E. Slade, of Saltgate, Beccles, Suffolk. Lance-Corporal Rogers shivered as ho stood in the barrack square. He expressed the piou^ hope that his prospective bride would like foreign anti warmer climes. Since he joined the Army he has' seen the world — the West Indies, China, Malta, Singapore, Turkey and - India — and he likes the sun.