A MATRIMONIAL ECHO

NZ Truth, Issue 1153, 5 January 1928, Page 7

A MATRIMONIAL ECHO

iGeoffrey Did Not Want A "Big I Noise It r „ (From "N,Z. Truth's" Special Auckland Representative.) J7CHOES. of an undefended divor ce case heard at Wellington three years ago enlivened the dull routine of the Auckland Maintenance Court last week when Madge Blundell made an application against her husband, GeofOeiy Allan Blundell, for an order for maintenance and guardianship in respect of herself and four children.

IT is fifteen years since Madge and Geoffrey Blundell, as the poet would say, "locked their hearts together and threw away the key."

Unfortunately for the wife, and despite the concrete blessings of four fine children, another woman, it was said, entered the life of her husband, and the matrimonial padlock was apparently not sufficient to keep Geoffrey's affection from straying into pastures afresh. Geoffrey's infatuation led him far afield, and, it is stated, he never looked back/ until his amorous wanderings involved him in the entanglements of a divorce case. That was at Wellington in 1924. Perhaps it was on account of the children that Borne form of a reconciliation between husband and wife followed, and some seven or eight months ago the home in Wellington was sold up and John secured a good position with Hoyes Motors at Auckland. But memories of happy but forbidden days in the capital city apparently still haunted the fickle Geoffrey,' and it was only a little over two weeks ago that Madge came home to a husbandless hearth. There was no pathetic and hard note of farewell pinned- to a pillow, nor even a vestige of evidence as to whither Geoffrey had flown. Intuition guided Madge to make inquiries in Wellington. Later, the wife was informed by a city firm of solicitors that. her husband "^■'would pay her the sum of £5 a week. It was on November 29 that Geoffrey had cut himself adrift from his marital ties, but only one payment of £5 had been received by the wife. Through Lawyer Leslie Adams, Mrs. Blundell negotiated her story in an application for assurance of that £5 a week.

"He left me with only two shillings when he went away," stated the unhappy spouse in opening her tale with details of her husband's casual departure. But that was a minor trouble compared with what was to follow. Geoffrey had gone away owing a few weeks' rent, it Avas said, and the furniture had been seized. Plaintiff's brother had come to the rescue by paying£l6/10/- to recover the household chattels. Lawyer Adams: Your husband is very well known in Wellington? — Yes.

"Making A Noise "

Was he not mixed up in a divorce case in Wellington? — the Buxton case? — Yes.

Before leaving Wellington, said plaintiff, her husband had got her to dispose of everything, and just as they were settled down in Auckland, with defendant earning from £7/10/- to £0 a week as a salesman in the employ of Hoyes Motors, he flitted back to old haunts.

"You got £5 on December 1, why did you not wait for your husband to make the second payment?" asked Lawyer Dennison in the interests of Blundell, who did not appear. Witness explained that she owed money and the landlord had called.

Are you not getting £1 a week from a boarder? — No, the boarder left, owing me money.

You have a garage you can rent? — No, I have not.

Lawyer Adams: "She'll be living in a garage if things are not adjusted."

To further questioning by the defending counsel as to the haste in bringing the' matter to court, it was intimated by the wife's counsel that fears were entertained regarding defendant's intentions to leave for Australia. Lawyer Dennison

— assured the court that his client had no desire to evade his obligation to his family, but, he stressed, an order for £5 a week would be beyond Blundell's present financial resources. He was only earning £4 a week and commission in his present billet at Wellington, but was willing to pay £3 a week.

Magistrate Cutten: "Probably the greater part of his income is derived from commissions."

Counsel referred his worship to a letter received from his client, in which defendant described his weekly salary as "an up and down affair."

"I am not keeping anyone else," stated the letter, "and I" have not saved a single penny of money I have earned. I am willing to take two of the children. ... I hope she does not come down here and make a big noise like she did before."

An order for £4/10/- a, week maintenance and the guardianship of the children was fixed by Magistrate Cutten, the £16/10/- for rent being treated as back maintenance to be paid within one month.