REGISTRAR’S STAND

Opotiki News, Volume I, Issue 46, 20 June 1938, Page 1

REGISTRAR’S STAND

WOULD NOT TRY MAX ONCE W r Ylt COMRADES •LONDON, Miirch 15. —Twenty years ago Colonel Alex Ragosin, of the Russian Guards, fled if,pm tho Soviet, escaped to England, and joined flic) British Army as a private. In May, 1918, he was sent to a training camp. Yesterday ho appeared at Clerkenwell County Court to answer a summons for debt. He looked at Mr Registrar Friend! —And recognised him as his. platoon commander at the- training camp. Mr Friend looked at him closely. “1 think there is some objection to my dealing with this case,” lie remarked. ‘‘Didn’t you come from Russia and serve in the British Army?” ■ v.

Mr Ragosin: Yes. Mr Friend: 1 believe we served togetherT—We did. “Well, I am very pleased, indeed, to meet you again,” .said l the registrar, leaving the Bench and warmly shaking Mr Ragosin by the' hand. “But 1 am not going to try your ease.” •

Said Air A. Burnett, solicitor for the plaintiffs: “My clients and I have sufficient faith in your impartiality to say-that wo would wish von to deal with it.”

Air'.Friend: “That is a< very high compliment, but 1 must still say no. You; get to like a man very much when you have known him as a priv>ate in the army.”

He transferred the action to tho judge’s court, where a settlement was reached.

M:r Ragosin, who lives in Abbey load, N.W., does film work now. Ho was the Russian waiter in “Cafe Colette,” and the. conductor of the Siberian express in “Forbidden Territory.”