NEVER TOO LATE TO WED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 August 1938, Page 8

NEVER TOO LATE TO WED

94-YEAR-OLD BRIDE-TO-BE. “Why pay two rents, burn two fires, furnish two homes and live alone, when, by marrying, we would need only one fire and pay only one rent? That’s sense, isn’t it? —and that’s why we’re going to get married.” That was the sentiment that prompted Herbert Walters, 77-year-old bachelor, of Stanley, near Wakefield, England, to propose to a 94-year-old widow, Mrs Ann Ansell, who lives in a cottage a few yards down the lane. Ann and Herbert have been friends for a long time, and it was the local authority’s decision recently to demolish Walters’s cottage that set the couple thinking. Both of these oldage pensioners were lonely. “Why shouldn’t we join forces?” — asked Walters in an interview. “We’ll be able to look after each other and £1 income for one household is better than ten shillings each for two households. We’re both hale and hearty, and it’s never too late to wed. She’ll be a fine wife. You should see the way she scrubs the floors. News of the forthcoming wedding has created a stir in the Stanley district, where the couple have lived for nearly fifty years. The date of the wedding is being kept secret, but it will take place at Wakefield Register Office. Mrs Ansell refuses to talk about it. “It’s only a wedding, so why should there be any fuss?” she says. Mrs Ansell lost her first husband 20 years ago. She had nine children, and five daughters and two sons are still living. She does all her own housework, cooking and washing. Walters, a former Derbyshire miner, is keen on gardening, and is now working in Mrs Ansell’s garden, growing vegetables for the couple’s use.