Personal Items

Press, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23537, 15 January 1942, Page 4

Personal Items

VICEREGAL GREYMOUTH, January 14. Their Excellencies the GovernorGeneral and Lady Ncwall, attended by Captain C. J. Holland-Martin, began their first official tour of the West Coast to-day. This morning they visited the Westport Hospital, the Old People's Home, the Maternity Home, and the O’Conor Home, later attending a civic reception, when they inspected defence and emergency precautions units. In the afternoon there was an informal reception in the Westport Town Hall. This evening their Excellencies attended a civic reception at Greymouth and later met representatives of local bodies and other organisations. Mr E. H. Andrews, Mayor of Christchurch, and Mr H. S. Feast, Town Clerk, returned yesterday from Wellington, where they attended a conference which considered Emergency Precautions Services. Mr R. McPherson, Wheat and Flour Controller, returned from the north yesterday. Second-Lieutenant P. E. Sefton, reported killed in action in Libya, was the only son of Mr Percy J. Sefton, formerly of Little River, and later headmaster of schools at Havelock North, Cambridge, and Auckland. Sec-ond-Lieutenant Sefton had a good school record, winning junior and senior national scholarships before joining the staff of the Union Bank. He was later employed by the Reserve Bank, He was called up immediately war was declared for service with his coastal defence unit, but later he gained a commission, and he went overseas early last year. Reference to the services of Mr W. A. Banks to education and rural life J v/ns made at a meeting of the executive of the North Canterbury branch of the Farmers' Union yesterday, when a motion of sympathy with his relatives was passed. Mr Banks, who was a former president of the North Canterbury branch, died recently.