AMAZING HOAX SURPRISES ENGLAND

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 643, 20 April 1929, Page 18

AMAZING HOAX SURPRISES ENGLAND

Amy Bock Case Recalled . . „ "Captain” Who Was Mother and "Father” to Children „ . <, ,& ¥/ife” Married for Years to Woman Masquerading as Man

rVHOUGH she lived with “him” for years, “Mrs. Victor Barker ” never discovered that her “ husband ” teas really a woman. The innocent victim of this a mazing masquerade recently told, how the “Captain” (who is now known to be a woman) wooed and won her in the role of a distingui shed Army officer. “lie was very fascinating ” she added, describing her courtship days.

ii mi I SORROW - STRICKEN U,. and half-dazed woman Cr I IKUX c: )?l told a correspondent of the London “Daily Mr 1 Chronicle” of her amazins courtship and “marriage.” She was Alfreda Emma Ha ward, the daughter of the village chemist at Mortimer West, who for years lived as the “wife” of “Captain Victor Barker, D. 5.0.,” believing him to be a man. Even now Miss Haward can hardly realise that she has been the victim of a colossal deception. When interviewed she was still wearing her wedding ring. “I cannot accustom myself to the idea that I am not married,” she said, in an anguished voice. “I cannot understand it at all. What can I have done to deserve this? I think I shall have to consult a solicitor to find out what my legal position is.” Later in the day Miss Haward collapsed under the nervous strain of her painful position, and fell on the floor of her father’s house in a faint. Miss Haward explained how she first met “Captain Barker,” early in 1923, at Littlehampton, where she was then Jiving with her parents. She was helping her father in his chemist’s shop, and “Captain Barker” came in as a customer. “He W’as very fascinating, and w r e became very friendly,” she said. “He took me to theatres, concerts and dances, and finally proposed. I accepted, after he had talked the matter over several times with my father, who. like me, thought he w’as a perfect gentleman. “We were married by special licence, very quietly, at St. Peter's Church, Brighton. “During the honeymoon, which we spent at the Grand Hotel, Brighton, he told me that he was really a baronet and sometimes addressed me as ‘My Lady Barker/ “Afterwards we lived at Andover and later at Uckfield, where my husband obtained a position on a farm as overseer. “Later he joined a touring theatrical company and played in a musical comedy show. “Toward the end of 1926 I had appendicitis and went into a nursing home for an operation. When I came out, in January, 1927, I received a note from my husband sayteg that he had

fallen in love with another woman, and could no longer live with me. “I destroyed all his letters and photographs, and determined to put him right out of my life. For the past two years I have lived happily with my parents, thinking that an unfortunate chapter in my life was closed. “And now comes this thunderbolt. What am I to do?

“It is quite untrue to imagine that I left my husband because I suspected him to be a woman.

“I believed his stories about his war experiences and his wounds. He had wounds on his neck and shoulders

which he said were caused by shrapnel. He also told me that he was awarded the D.S.O. for rescuing a brother officer under fire.” It is now possible, writes the “Daily Chronicle” representative, to piece together events and incidents in the life of “Captain Victor Barker”—as a “W.R.A.F.” overseas during the days of the war, as a mother of children, and, finally, as a “man” and loving “husband.” “Captain” Barker has been “married” twice —first as a woman and then as a man, with the extraordinary result that her children first called her “mother” and as they grew older “daddy.”

Her first marriage was at St. John’s Church, Milford, Surrey, on April 27, to Mr. Harold Arkell Smith, a second lieutenant attached to the Australian Forces.

There were two children, a boy, now aged 9, and a girl, aged 8. Shortly after the wedding the couple are believed to have gone to Hook, near Surbiton, and later to London. After the birth of her children Mrs. Smith went to the Littlehampton district, where, in partnership, she rented Baker’s Court, and engaged in dog breeding. She was then known as Mrs. Pearce Crouch, and her mannish clothes and mannerisms attracted much attention. Mrs. Pearce Crouch “disappeared,” and in her place appeared “Captain Victor Barker.” She staged her debut, apparently reckless of discovery, at Brighton. Giving herself the title of a knight, she booked rooms at the Grand Hotel and rapidly became well known. The “marriage” to this girl, the chemist’s daughter, Miss Alfreda Emma Haward, took place at St. Peter’s Church, Brighton, November 14, 1923. At Andover Before they parted, Captain Barker had distinguished himself in the district by: Setting up as an antique dealer. Keeping wicket for the local cricket club, Singing in the church choir, Riding to hounds with the Tidworth Hunt, and Joining otherwise in the social activities of the town. With his “wife” he lived at Brighton, Andover and at Uckfield, in Sussex, leaving her in 1926. Since that time “Captain Barker,” who has at various times been known as “Colonel Barker,” “Captain Sir Victor Barker, D. 5.0.,” and plain “Mr. Barker,” has been An actor who went on tour with “Bamboula,” in 1927, playing the part of a dude, Manager of a large farm in the Midlands, A leader of the Fascist! movement in London, “Man about Town,” with a flat in Mayfair, Restaurant proprietor in the West End of London, and Reception clerk at a London hotel. Apparently with considerable means at his disposal, this astonishing person, during the first months of his life in the West End of London, entertained lavishly and showed a keen interest in ex-servicemen. Woman Friend “As an old 1914 man himself,” he felt it “up to him” to do all he could to help the lot of “other ex-servicemen.” He founded the Mons Club, which used to meet at an hotel off the Strand, and later helped to establish a branch of the club at Peckham. Latterly Captain Barker had a woman friend whom she introduced prior to her arrest as “Mrs Barker.” Captain Barker was .then residing at a. maisonette in Markham Square, Chelsea, and working as a reception clerk in the Regent Palace Hotel. On the resurrection morning Soul and body meet again. ’’Do you really want your body to live on in heavenly places?” he asks. “If you do, do you want the body of your youth, when you danced and played games, or the body of your old age, which Is rather a nuisance?” Nearly all hymn books, he adds, have a certain number of bad hymns—- “ Because there were usually one or two flapdoodling old gentlemen on the committees whose hearts were bigger than their heads.” As a good hymn book the vicar suggests “Songs of Praise,” the hymnal compiled by Dr. Vaughan Williams, the composer, and others and brought out three years ago.