SOS Man’s Secret Love

Manawatu Times, Volume 62, Issue 34, 10 February 1937, Page 3

SOS Man’s Secret Love

SISTERS MEET THEIR BROTHER’S FIANCEE IN HOSPITAL DEATH DRAMA In the operating theatre of Bethnal Green Hospital a losing fight was waged for tho life of James Welsh (24), tetanus victim, to whose aid Dr. Ranyard West, brilliant toxicologist, had raced from Oxford in answer to the SOS call by the 8.8. C. Welsh died at dawn. Below, in the waiting-room of the hospital, three girls sat, to each of whom James Welsh was very dear. Two of them were his sisters; the other his fiancee, Miss Ivy Heatley. Sisters and fiancee had never met before. Tragedy performed the introduction. While Dr. West strove to save Welsh the sisters waited with tho girl who, to that time, had been a stranger to them. Miss Heatley knew of the sisters, but she and Welsh had agreed to keep their engagement secret until ChnstBecause of her great distress Miss Heatley was not told that the end was near. She was persuaded to go home. The two sisters remained, but they did not see their brother before her died. ‘‘When I returned to the hospital 1 was told that he was dead,” Miss Heatley, who lives at Graham road, Hackney, said. “We had known each other for 3J years and had planned everything for our future. “Although Jimmy had never taken me to his home we were going to announce our engagement at Christmas and to be maried early in the New Year. We had both saved hard. “I had no idea that ho was ill last week. Ho had never had a day’s illness.” Welsh, who lived ot Freemantle House, Brady street, Stepney, E., contracted tetanus when a nail pierced his boot. Dr. West, formerly of Bart’s Hospital, has been carrying out research at Oxford into the medical possibilities of ‘curare,” tho deadly poison used by South American Indians for their blowpipes. Believing that “curarine,” tho active principle of tho poison, might save life in otherwise hopeless tetanus cases, ho had appealed for prompt notice of any tetanus case