JOE McRAE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 143, 20 June 1938, Page 6

JOE McRAE.

TARAWERA NIGHT MEMORIES. (By J.C.) The late Joseph Mcßae, ninety-year-old Highlander, of old Wairoa township and Tarawera eruption fame, was sometimes mistaken for an Irishman by those who were neither Scots nor Irish. He had a turn of wit that seemed more Milesian than Gaelic. He had seen much of the rough end of life liefore he took up hotelkeeping in the hot springs and terraces region. There arc very few people left in the Rotorua- country who witnessed.the eruption. Harry Lundins, the surveyor, who helped in the rescue work with Mcßae, died in Wellington this year. Alfred Warbrick, who retired I'roni the Government guiding business several years ago, had probably a better view of the outburst of the volcano than anyone else, for he saw it from the edge of the Makatiti bush, on the north side of Lake Tarawera, directly opposite the mountain. Mr. Warbrick, who has been in hospital’ at Rotorua for many months, is now in his home again at Whakarewarewa, still in very weak condition. Mr. Mcßae was the central figure in many stories of Tc Wairoa and Tarawera in the pre-eruption days. His hotel accommodated many men of note, and of some of these he had his own tales to tell. One of the women tourists who stayed in his hotel on her visit to the Rotoniahana terraces was the celebrated Scottish traveller and writer, Miss Gordon Cumming. Her massive figure, mannish habits and determined way with the Maoris made her a famous personage in Lakeland. The “wahine Kotimana”’punched a Maori’s head one day at Wairoa; she could hit straight and hard. Not a Bottle Broken.

Mr. Lnmlius used (o narrate that on the morning after the night of terror in ruineel Wairoa, he went down to Mcßae's hotel to search for some brandy for Mrs. Hazard, who had been brought out with difficulty from her wrecked home, where her husband and youngest children were killed. He was amazed to find that although tiie rest of the hotel was smashed and crushed in by the volcanic showers of rocks and ash the liquor bar was quite intact; not a bottle was broken. lie found his brandy, and reported the good news of the bar to Mcßae, who was busy with the rescue work in the village. “Ah, yon see,” said Joe, “the devil looks after his own.” This was by way of allusion to the severe things that sometimes were said about the publichouse and its owner by teetotal pakehas. That bar did not long remain in the condition in which Lundins found it. Mcßae was generous with his supply of stimulants, and handed out all that was required by the rescue and search parties without thinking of payment. But his liberality was meanly requited. When the Wairoa was abandoned for the winter the wreck of the hotel was shut up, until it was possible to return. The roads were destroyed, but. some looters managed to visit the ruins and. the stock of liquor, or what had remained of it, had disappeared from the shelves.

THE LAST TATTOO.

There is probably truth in the current rumour that this year’s Aidershot Tattoo will be the last. If so, service charities, to say nothing of the Aidershot area generally, will suffer a severe loss, while the season will lose one of its most picturesque events. The fact is, however, that the Aidershot Tattoo and the many, similar, if subsidiary, events of the same kind held in other parts of the country do Interfere seriously with normal military training, and it is an indication of the seriousness of the times that all such impediments to efficiency are being ruthlessly scrapped. It was with the same idea in view that many interunit sporting competitions'in the Army have been scrapped, since it was felt that these tended to create sporting specialists at the expense 'of the ordinary rank and file. Anyhow, it would seem that if this year’s Aidershot Tattoo is to be the last of its kind, it will end up in a blaze of glory. Rushmoor arena is to be transferred into “The Field of the Cloth of Gold," and the pageantry representing the meeting of Henry VIII. of England and Francois I. of France will be spacious and colourful. By way of contrast, there will he an air defence display, complete with sound sjiotters, searchlights, predictors, antiaircraft guns and so on by the London AntiAircraft Division of the Territorial Army. The tattoo lasts for a fortnight in June.

BUILT ON A BUBBLE.

Lord Nuffield has made such large benefactions of late that any gift less than 1 half a million or so seems hardly to liiake news worthprinting. His latest gift—quite a minor affair of £B9.9oo—will go to Guy’s Hospital, provided that £300,000 is raised by public appeal. Guy's Hospital has done such magnificent work for London that the sum should certainly be forthcoming. It is an old institution, dating back to 1725, and exists in consequence of a successful stock gamble by Thomas Guy. Recently discovered documents at the hospital include a record of Guy's personal transactions in connection with the South Sea bubble. This shows that -lie sold £54,041) of South Sea stock for £234,428 2/, and the money was the basis of the fortune with which he built and endowed the original hospital. The clerk to the governors made the actual discovery, and the records, which are in a form that closely resembles a present-day school exercise book, were found in a vault containing, among other historic and/or historical records, accumulated during 200 years, a supply of war-time meat tickets.