FARMER’S FLIGHT TO IRELAND

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26396, 14 April 1951, Page 2

FARMER’S FLIGHT TO IRELAND

WAGER WITH FRIEND AIR TRIP FROM HOME TO BIRTHPLACE (New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, April 13. For a bet a Waharoa farmer, Mr Viv Troughton, has set out on the first stage of a flight from the back door of his home near Matamata to the back door of his birthplace in Northern Ireland. The idea cropped up in conversation while he and his friend. Mr Jim Winter, were having a few drinks together a few weeks ago. “Jim and I used to live near each other in Northern Ireland. I came out here in 1920 and he in 1924,” said Mr Troughton in Auckland to-day. “We are still on farms only a few miles apart. Jim said: ‘l’ll bet you a carton oi beer you can’t. I took him on.” Mr Troughton became keen on the idea, and with the co-operation of the Waharoa Aero Club took off on Wednesday in a Tiger Moth from his farm, landed at Waharoa, and came on to Auckland in the same aeroplane. To-morrow afternoon Mr Troughton will leave by flying-boat for Sydney, fly to London by British Overseas Airways Corporation service, go by airliner to Manchester, and complete his journey in a private charter aerop.ane to the old family farm at Annaboo, Kilmore, County Armagh, Northern Ireland. One of his brothers still farms there. "I’m thrilled, although it might sound silly,” he said. His seven children are even more excited.