EPSOM NONAGENARIAN.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 124, 27 May 1932, Page 8

EPSOM NONAGENARIAN.

ANNIVERSARY TO-MORROW. LEARNED BILLIARDS AT 78. "When I left England in 1864 I understood that so much building was going on that houses were being shingled at night. I learned afterwards it was true, but the day I arrived at the Bluff I found the bailiffs in possession at the provincial offices, ana hardly a man in Invercargill." So said Mr. John G. ■■ Anstee, of Green Lane Road, Epsom, who will celebrate the ninetieth anni-1 versary of his birthday to-morrow. I

Mr. Anstee, then a young man of 22 years, and married, left Somersetshire in 1864, with his wife on a barque, the Donna Anita, of 500 tons, and 130 days later they arrived at the Bluff. The trip was so smooth that for nearly three weeks the barque was becalmed in the tropics. On reaching Invercargill Mr. Anstee was surprised and chagrined to find the place "dead" and not the hive of industry he had been led to believe. However, he was not long in learning the reason. Gold had been discovered in the lakes district, and practically the whole of the male population of Invercargill had been gripped with the gold i fever, and had left the town.

Realising that it was no use remaining in Invercargill, Mr. Anstee, who was a carpenter, went to Hokitika. and later to other towns in the Dominion, finally coming to Auckland in 1907. At the age of 78 years he took up bowling with the West End Club, and also learned to play billiards. "Had I taken on billiards when I was a yming man I might .have been a champion at the game," said Mr. Anstee to-day.