LIFE OF WORK WITH HORSES

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29718, 11 January 1962, Page 3

LIFE OF WORK WITH HORSES

Christchurch Man Of 82 Mr F. E. A. Uren, of 372 Cashel street, who celebrated his eighty-second birthday on Tuesday, has spent most of his life working with horses. He was born in Dunedin, but came to Christchurch to live on his father’s cattle farm in Opawa when he was about seven. At the time he was ready to start work he could not find employment in Christchurch, and walked to Ashburton with a friend. It was a Wednesday—the day on which farmers came to town—when he arrived in Ashburton, and he and his friend &ood outside a hotel, where they were both offered employment by farmers. When he returned to Christchurch he became a groom for a doctor, and later drove a coach from Dallington to Christchurch Afterwards he worked for the horse tramways, mostly in charge of the relief horses, which he would take to the depot. He also worked tor coal merchants and carriers, and as the driver of a horse cab under an arrangement by which the proprietor of the cab firm claimed half the fare. In his last working years Mr Uren was a night watchman, a post that involved responsibility for the horses of the Christchurch Citv Council.