LOST IN CAVES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 July 1940, Page 6

LOST IN CAVES

“SIX HOURS WITH DEATH ALWAYS NEAR.” LIGHTS SWITCHED OFF. Monti Ryan, flaxen-haired English television star, spent six hours on hands and knees one day recently with death always near, trying to grope hei way out of the inky darkness of W ookey Hole caves, in Somerset. With her was Mrs G. Hodgkinson, whose husband (now in the Royal Air Force) owns the caves.

Miss Rvan had given a Sunday concert at Bristol, and had gone afterwards to stay at the home of Lady Brickwood, at Wells. Next morning she and Mrs Hodgkinson set out to take a "private view” of the caves. They switched on the lights, but halt an hour later, when they were at the far end of the caves, the lights went out. An attendant had turned them out. thinking he had left them on the night before. “We had no matches.” Miss Ryan said later, "and it was as black as ink. We groped our way about for hours, crawling on our hands and knees. M e threw stones and rocks ahead of us to find out where the water was. "We yelled for help, and soon we were covered with mud and grime. I crooned songs —-'Oh! Johnny and Ovei the Rainbow' —to keep our spirits up. Once a great piece of rock barred oui way. with water on either side of it. We crawled over it. We d had only toast and marmalade for breakfast, but we were too scared to feel hungry. Meanwhile, Lady Brickwood, finding her guest missing, had gone out to look for her. She asked a gardener near the caves if two women had gone inside. and the gardener said “No. At 3.30 the captives were suddenly' blinded—the lights had gone up again. Thcv ran toward a party of sightseers —the first to enter during the day.