"BUSMAN'S HOLIDAY"

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21715, 24 February 1936, Page 10

"BUSMAN'S HOLIDAY"

A SEA CAPTAIN ON TOUR What do sailors do when they retire? Some, it is said, buy farms, others become proprietors of hotels, and a few live at leisure beside the sea. Captain A. H. Holland, a Trinity House pilot for the last 41 years, has done none of these things.

Now that he has retired he has taken his wife with him on a sea voyage round the world, and he travelled out from England to Australia on the Narkunda, a ship that he has piloted up the Thames countless times.

Trinity House, one of the oldest corporations in London, has 400 pilots on its roll and supervises all the lighthouses round Great Britain. Captain Holland first went to sea in 1884 in a tug-boat that towed ships laden with Australian wool up the Thames, and seven years later he joined a sailing brig trading along the east coast of England. This was followed by a period as quartermaster of the Royal Sovereign until 1894, when he obtained his pilot's ticket and joined Trinity House. Since then he has piloted 8700 ships in or out of port. For 20 years he was the "choice" pilot for P. and O. Line and for 38 years he enjoyed a similar office for the Union Castle Line. During that time he handled every P. and O. ship except the Strathmore. Captain Holland, who is now in Christchurcn on his trip round the world, told a reporter yesterday that he had once been fogged in the Thames for five days, and he had been fogged several times for three days. He had a reputation among master mariners of being able to "smell" his way about the river.

"I suppose this trip is really a busman's holiday," he said, "but I am enjoying myself."