FIRST FLIGHT AT NINETY-FIVE

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 302, 17 September 1936, Page 10

FIRST FLIGHT AT NINETY-FIVE

Gabriel’s Gully Veteran HOPES TO ARRIVE BY AIR FOR CENTENARY Alert and active despite his years, Mr. William Ayson, of Waikaka, Southland, is also progressive. He is 95— and he travels by air. He has already flown from Dunedin to Palmerston North with Union Airways, and to-day he will leave Wellington'by Cook Strait Airways for Blenheim, transferring there to the Union Airways machine for Christchurch. After spending some days in Christchurch he will fly to Dunedin. Mr. Ayson arrived in Otago from Scotland by the Royal Albert in 1853, five years after the Philip Laing had landed the first settlers. He walked the 54 miles to Kaitangata carrying a swag when barely into his ’teens, and he was in the gold rush to Gabriel’s Gully. Since then he ha.s travelled on horseback, in bullock wagons, In trains, in motor-cars and in steamers. In June he wanted to go to Tauranga, but did not fancy the long train journey to Lyttelton. He endeavoured to arrange to travel by sea from Dunedin >to Wellington. It could not be managed. He was almost resigned to the disliked prospect of the train ridA to Lyttelton. A friend suggested, more or less jocularly, that he might fly to Wellington. “I went along and inquired about it,” he confided when explaining how he came to make his first flight “They got a great shock at home when they heard about me going to fly to Palmerston North.”

On June 18 he was a passenger on the service machine, having breakfast in Dunedin and lunch in Palmerston North and becoming the oldest passenger by far to fly with Union Airways. “It was all right,” he said in reply to the Inevitable question. There was no discomfort and he did not feel nervous. “I had never been alongside an aeroplane before,” he confessed. “But you can tell what my opinions are about flying—l’m flying back to Dunedin.’’

Mr. Ayson went on from Palmerston North to Tauranga by train and returned by train to Wellington. When he reaches Dunedin an overland journey faces him as far as Waikaka. Did he not think he might charter an aeroplane to fly from Dunedin to Gore? “Well, I want to call at a few places on the way,” he explained. “Still, it will come to that no doubt. A man will have his own private aeroplane and go where he likes. Some day we will be able to leave Dunedin after breakfast and have forenoon tea in Wellington.” Mr. Ayson will be 96 in December. He hopes to be in Wellington for the centenary in 1940. He will then be 100. And if he has his way he will fly to Wellington.