Carey, Horace

Carey was a Hythe Bus driver working for East Kent Buses and had three failed attempts on the Channel

Horace Henry Carey was born in 1895 in Bishopbourne, Kent, son of a publican, later a pork butcher. The family moved to Rhodes Minnis and then High St., Hythe, when Horace was an infant. He trained to be a gardener

Dr. Dorothy Logan’s infamous hoax Channel swim of 1927 ruined the reputation of both Logan and Carey who was her trainer and her lover. Both were found guilty of fraud for signing the affidavits to get the £1000 prize money from the News of the World and were fined.

Nevertheless, in 1929 Carey married Dr. Dorothy Cochrane Logan, aka Mona MacLellan, in Wandsworth. He was 8 years her junior and a driver for East Kent Buses, and they lived at Hythe. Dorothy was a gynacological specialist in London and only spent the weekends in Hythe, although she had been brought up in the town since an infant. She had met Carey in 1925 when both were training to swim the Channel at Hythe. He became trainer for her 4 attempts at the Channel in 1926 and 1927

The couple had a daughter but separated in 1930 and finally divorced in 1939 (the judge mentioning the disparity inherent in a love match between a highly-educated Harley Street surgeon and a rural working class bus driver). The daughter, born London in 1929, was baptised Joan Mona MacLellan Cochrane Carey at Saltwood, Hythe. The couple were in constant dispute over custody of the child during the 30s

Logan emigrated with her daughter Joan to New Zealand after the war and died at Whitianga on 19 July 1961.