Printer’s Errors

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30529, 26 August 1964, Page 23

Printer’s Errors

(N:Z. Press Association-Copyright)

SYDNEY, August 25. Cedric Godwin, a 22-year-old printer’s labourer, cannot spell. That is why, for five years, the Australian Army has said “no” each time he has tried to join up. He has tried every six months since he was 17 to pass the Army entrance examination. Each time his . pelling has let him down. Mr Godwin, who Ilves in Berala, an outer Sydney

suburb, will keep on trying. He said yesterday: “I don’t want to be a general or any thing like that All I want to do is to drive a tank or a truck—and spelling shouldn’t be necessary for this. “Every six months I get rejected after a spelling test but I go back every time. I’ll keep on going back until I wear them down.”

“Those blokes don't want soldiers. You’d have to be a lawyer or a university student to spell the words they put in the test,” he said. “I cant think of any of the words, but they’re tough—mighty tough. “Some of them I can’t even pronounce. I've spent months sitting staring at a dictionary, but it’s hopeless. “I’m baffled why the Army won’t have me. After all, I can read road signs, so I wouldn’t get into trouble in a tank or a truck. My arithmetic Is pretty good, too.” His father, a soldier in World War 11, was killed in Burma. His stepfather is a sergeant at Moorebank.

“The Army is part of our family. That’s why I intend to get in, no matter how long it takes,” he said.