BRAVE WIVES.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXX, Issue 5441, 28 June 1929, Page 4

BRAVE WIVES.

THE COURAGE OF WAITING. Behind the glory of the men who risk their lives to break records and win fresh laurels on the racing track and in the air lies the drama of the women who wait.

Sir Homy Segrave, the world’s speed king, was making his hurtling plunge at 231 miles an hour across the sands of Daytona, and his wife, in the grandstand, covered her eyes with her hands in an agony of suspense. Not till the cheering broke out that told her husband was safe dared she look at the shining projectile in which he had made his great gamble with death.

To-day Lady Segrave shares in the honour that is being bestowed upon her. husband on his triumphant return home. But one can imagine that her joy is not entirely unalloyed. All women, mothers and -wives, whose men flirt with death know the agonies of that wait while fate hangs in the balance and a man’s life turns on the strength of his wrists, the quickness of his eye, and the precision of machinery. Lady Cobham knew it while her husband was writing history in the air. So did Mrs Malcolm Campbell. Airs Linbergh, the mother of the Atlantic airman, and a dozen others. For over eight years Lady Segrave has known, the agonies of suspense and uncertainty while her husband has been racing and breaking speed records. She watched his terrifying dash across the sands at Southport in 1926, when he broke the world's record for the flying kilometre. All she saw was something red tearing past at twice the speed of an express train. “It made me feel sick and ill,” she stated afterwards. Then she saw poor Dick Howey, the racing motorist, killed at Boulogne. His car overturned and burst into flames. It was enough to shatter the nerves of any woman, yet when her husband wanted to go out to Florida in 1927 to attack the world’s speed record she did not seek to deter him.

But her friends knew what agonies she suffered. Two days after Sir Henry sailed from Southampton came the terrible accident at Pendine Sands when Mi’ Parry Thomas was killed. “I would have given anything in the world to have recalled my husband home,” Lady Segrave said. For nights on end her fears for his safety were so great that she could not go to sleep. Whenever the telephone bell rang she was afraid to answer it in case it should be a message of bad news.

“I thought once I would follow my husband to America,” Lady Segrave said, “but I lacked -.the courage. I could not bear to see him risking his life.”

“It is marvellous,’” she exclaimed, when she was told he had broken the record. “But I wish he would give it up. It is difficult to keep a stiff Upper lip when your man is risking his life.’ When Flight-Lieutenant Webster, the young Air Force hero, won the Schneidei’ seaplane trophy at the incredible speed of 281 miles an hour, there were two women in England who waited with their hearts in their mouths for the news that he was safe. One was his mother, the other was his fiancee, Miss Enid L. Darnly, of Ipswich. Spectators at Venice saw his seaplane whizz round the course like a grey shell from a monster gun. So terrific was the speed that the machine looked like a blur in the sky. A minute later the news was being flashed to England that he had won the greatest aerial trophy in the world.

His mother shed a few tears, but pride in her son’s triumph reasserted itpelf and she was soon smiling. “He is a wonderful boy,” she said, “but we had no idea he would ever bring such fame to us as this.”

No woman has probably had to endure the agonies of suspense and uncertainty more than Lady Cobham, the wife of the famous airman. Time after time she has known many anxious hours while he has been blazing new air routes in far-off parts of the earth. On one occasion, when he was flying to Calcutta, no news was received of him for four days, and serious misgivings were entertained for his safety. Mrs Cobham—as she was then—was distracted. Then the news came through that all was well. Her husband had had to turn back on the Burma coast on account of a monsoon. Another time that Cobham was near death was when Arabs shot at his machine and killed his mechanic, Mr Elliott, near Basra. For 500 miles Cobham had to race through the air at a height of 4000 feet over a wild desert populated by fiercely hostile tribes. All the time he was haunted by the fear that his petrol would give out and that he would have to make a forced landing. Fortunately, Lady Cobham was spared the agony of knowing of this experience until it was all over.