NAVY LEAGUE LUNCHEON

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26264, 8 November 1950, Page 2

NAVY LEAGUE LUNCHEON

ADDRESS BY MRS J. MOWBRAY TRIPP

More than 70 members of the Navy League, including strong representation of the Women’s Auxiliary and the Junior branch, attended a centennial luncheon gathering held in the National Club rooms yesterday. Mrs H. Wyatt, president of the women's auxiliary, presided and welcomed specially invited guests, among whom were Miss H. Booth (Y.W.C.A.). Mrs M. Davis (Women’s Institutes). Misses M. Skoglund and M. Ray (Victoria League), and Mrs B. Bullock, a member of the Auckland Navy League and formerly a member of the Christchurch branch. The speaker at the meeting was Mrs J. Mowbray Tripp, a vice-president of the league, who gave an informal talk about the Mackenzie country in the early days. Her late husband, she said, was a part-owner of the Glentannai station, on the road to Mount Cook, about 80 years ago, when the property comprised 38.000 acres. The best wool then sold for Bld a pound and the poorer quality for 4Jd. In summer a coach passed the property once a week, on Its way to Mount Cook, but for seven months of the year the mail was delivered 70 miles away once a fortnight. Later, Mrs Tripp said, Mr Tripp for four years managed a station called Richmond, and the letters written by him at that time recalled the terrible loneliness and the intense cold he suffered at this high-country station where the highest peak was 7900 feet and coal and wood were very difficult to obtain. There he planted many trees, cared for 23.000 sheep, and received a salarv of £lOO and later £l5O a year. Wild horses roamed the hills, and as many as 1000 were killed. Mr Tripp estimated that when he left Richmond in 1898 only three, remained. His writings describe the disastrous snowstorm o’ 1895 when of the 23.000 sheep at Richmond only 37n survived.

Mrs Tripp related many amusing stories which her husband used to tell about the men who worked in the back country and shared with him the hardships suffered in those early days. Canon A. H. Norris thanked Mrs Tripp for her address.