92 TODAY

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29901, 15 August 1962, Page 17

92 TODAY

“A Simple Will To Live”

Attributing his long life to a simple will to live, Mr Albert Ernest Victor Chaney, of 108 Kainga road. .Stewart's Gully, who will celebrate his ninety-second birthday today, said it had been a “damn long time when you come to look back.

“You ask yourself, ‘What have I done with my life?'— and I. think I've slept half of mine away,” he said ‘T’ve enjoyed living, but I don’t expect to reach 100."

Mr Chaney was born on August 15, 1870, at Chaney's corner, which was named after his grandfather who came to Canterbury in the Randolph, one of the First Four Ships. He has lived in Christchurch all his life apart from a trip to Sydney in the 1890's He was the oldest of seven children and has survived them all.

Mr Chaney recalled the time when the Waimakariri river flooded every six or seven years, and the early days of motoring in Canterbury when he used to drive a Model T Beauty Ford He

sold it after 18 years’ use, for £lO less than he paid for it. He drove one of the first electric trams in Christchurch for 12 years, and worked on a farm, to a butchery, on the River Trust, in factories and shops, and was at the Canterbury Frozen Meat Company when he finally retired at 80 “In those days we had to work for our money. Nowadays you just sit around and wait for pay-day.” he told a reporter from “The Press.” Mr Chaney has been married twice and has four sons and two daughters to Canterbury. He gave up driving when he was 90.