Ishbel's "Tinker"

A telephone jangled sharply one morning last week in the redbrick, large-timbered, weather-beaten Plow Inn at Speen, Bucks., a little village nestling among the Chiltern Hills. "It's from London," someone cautioned, and the early customers waited expectantly. "Well, we've done it," giggled a feminine voice from the London end. "They've done it!" shouted the bartender. No explanation was needed for the pub's regular customers. "They" meant the owner of the Plow, plain-featured, 35-year-old Ishbel Allen MacDonald, daughter of the late longtime Prime Minister James Ramsay MacDonald, and her fiance of two weeks, sandy-haired, 35-year-old Norman Ridgley, village handy man. The telephone call meant they had been quietly married.

Up in London, newshawks located the couple still at Hampstead Town Hall where the marriage had taken place. Of the bride's family, only a younger sister Sheila had attended. Brother Malcolm was too busy in his office as Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs. A quiet ceremony had been decided upon, explained Ishbel, because of the recent death of her father (TIME, Nov. 22). "I'm not going to tell you about the honeymoon. I shall not say whether we are going to the Plow tonight," smiled the new Mrs. Ridgley coyly. Shy Mr. Ridgley, who listed himself on the marriage register as "house decorator," blushed, rapturously said nothing.

When her father left No. 10 Downing Street, Ishbel decided to employ her servants in the 17th-Century inn at Speen. Hard by Chequers, country home of Britain's Prime Ministers, the Plow became a stopping place for tourists who came to see the former hostess of No. 10 handing out half pints in the pub. She employed Ridgley, dubbed "Tinker" by his cronies, as her gardener, started village tongues to wagging when she drove about the countryside with him last summer. Drummer in the village band, Tinker gained further favor because he was Speen's ace darts player. "Miss Ishbel" has her own team of dart throwers which she pits against teams from neighboring pubs. Tinker is her captain. "I think darts a very clean and fine sport. I wish to encourage the game," she once explained.

The simple, tweedy Ishbel is one of the close friends of Their Majesties King George & Queen Elizabeth, and occasionally drives up to London to dine in Buckingham Palace.

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