WONDERFUL OLD LADY

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 23, 28 January 1933, Page 18

WONDERFUL OLD LADY

"As I. finish writing these words I am in my eighty-ninth years," says the remarkable lady who has recorded her memories of a crowded and energetic life in "Beeolleetions of an Octogenarian" (By I. G. Homewood, published by Murray), a book which for lucidity and humour might make many a younger author envious. In Ma delightful preface Mr. Chesterton tells us that "Mrs. Homewood set out on an ordinary bicycle to ride Tound the world, with no more fuss than if she had been riding round the parish pump." He is contrasting her with the limelit heroines of the present day. Mrs. Homewood was in the sixties when she set out on her adventures, having only recently taken to cycling at all, and she continued to ride until she was touching fourscore 1

Mrs. Homewood was born in 1844, and shortly after her marriage at an early age came to New Zealand. Her husband had a run in Canterbury, but he does not seem to have been cut out for Colonial life, and he was pessimistic, too, about the future of New Zealand.' A return, therefore, was made to England, but, as a widow, Mrs. Homewood visited New Zealand again about thirty years ago.

This must be nearly the perfect travel book, delightful and amusing, and one learns that yet another visit to New Zealand is contemplated, this time by aeroplane 1