WORKMEN FOR ROXBURGH

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27055, 2 June 1953, Page 9

WORKMEN FOR ROXBURGH

39 ARRIVE FROM BRITAIN

ROYAL ARMS CARRIED ON AIRCRAFT

Even the Constellation aircraft, Ross Smith, which landed at the Christchurch international airport from Dandon yesterday with a party of 39 British workmen, carried its Coronation decorations. Emblazoned on the nose and fuselage were the arms of the Kingdom of England, three gold lions on a red shield, and the Royal Cipher, over the words, “Australian Coronation Service.” The aircraft did the trip from London to Christchurch in 42 flying hours, taking four and a half hours for the last stage of the journey from Sydney in a tail wind.

The workmen, who have come to New Zealand as employees of the overseas firm of Cubitts and Zschokke on the Roxburgh hydro-electric scheme, were met by the company’s personnel officer, Mr J. D. Sinclair, and were taken to the Tasman Hostel, Lyttelton, for the night They will leave for Roxburgh today. This was the third charter flight from Britain bringing workmen for Roxburgh. The passengers included carpenters, fitters, scaffolders, cableway operators and concrete workers. All had been greatly impressed by the magnificent Coronation decorations at Singapore, which they had seen lit up at night. They left London on May 28, before the decorations had been completed, and did not see them at night. Asked if he was reluctant to leave London so near Coronation Day. Mr Ronald Beswick, a fitter from Liverpool, said he had been in the army for six years and was quite used to “Pulling out his roots” and partings. “No, I was not at all sad about leaving London: I was looking forward to a new life ahead in New Zealand,” he said. Mr Beswick hopes to settle in New'Zealand after his two-year con - tract at Roxburgh expires, if prospects are as good as he has heard they are.

“Conditions are not exactly grim for workers in England, but if you work only a flat week for a wage it is merely a bread-and-butter existence over there. The extra work and overtime brings in the cake and I guess it is the same everywhere,” he said. Mr John Pritchard, a carpenter’s fitter from London, said he had been trying to come to New Zealand for three years. “The next step is to find a house so that I can bring out my wife and children,” he said. The pilot of the Constellation on its flight from Sydney to Christchurch, Captain J. C. Pollock, was making his first flight on this trip. It was a smooth, uneventful journey in cloud most of the way until they crossed the Southern Alps and came over the Canterbury plains, he said. The aircraft touched down at 3.35 p.m. and took off again for Sydney soon after 6 p.m. without passengers or freight.