44 YEARS' SERVICE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 153, 1 July 1938, Page 8

44 YEARS' SERVICE.

CABLE BOARD OFFICER.

TWO TERMS OX FANNING ISLAND.

Two periods of service at the cable station on Fanning Island, north of the -■quator, were part of Mr. J. T. Coote's 44 years as a cable and telegraph official. Mr. Coote retired on superannuation this week from the position of assistant manager for the Pacific Cable Board in New Zealand.

Many executive positions under the board have been occupied by Mr. Coote. Of late years he has toured New Zealand several times in the interests of Cable and Wireless, Ltd., the Empirewide organisation with which the board is now associated. He intends to spend his retirement in Auckland. Mr. Coote entered the Post and Telegraph Department at Paeroa in 1894. On the inauguration of the Pacific Cable Board's system in 1902 he transferred to its staff, and during his association of 36 years with the board he was stationed at Doubtless Bay and Melbourne, twice each at Suva, Fanning Island and Sydney, and three times at Auckland.

Fanning Island is the midway point of the long Pacific cable, and there Mr. Coote had pleasant experiences. Ther° were transport difficulties in the early days, however, for the island could only be reached bv schooner. On his last stay, from 1919 to 1922, his family spent about ten weeks in the journey from Auckland, arriving eventually from San Jbrancisco in the schooner Doris Crane This vessel, incidentally, was burned at sea a few years later.