SHIPS AND THE SEA

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 69, 18 September 1937, Page 24

SHIPS AND THE SEA

MANY YEARS IN SAILING SHIPS

WELLINGTONIAN A SAILOR FROM BOYHOOD

(By "Spunyam.").

Living in Wellington is an old sailor who has given up the sea, but who treasures memories of his early days afloat. He is Mr. Fred Luxton, who since the age of 13 has found his life mtimately connected with ships and ihe sea.

Mr. Luxton was educated in the St. ..aS-cras School, near Watford, Herts., ••nd -when he reached the age of 13 nb took to the sea, entering the training sLip Exmouth, which lay at Greenhithe, near Tilbury. In charge of the Exmouth was the former master of the Goliath, which was burnt oiT Tilbury in 1875, when there were 300 boys aboard. The captain courageously refused to leave his ship until all the boys had been taken off. Mr. Luxton entered the Merchant Service "on leaving the training ship, and for a while was employed on a brig trading to Jersey and Guernsey. He subsequently took to deep-water ships, the first being a small barque of 308 tons, called the Bon Accord. She traded to Coquimbo and,. Callao, where she loaded sugar for Liverpool.

The four-masted barque Talavera was Mr. Luxton's next vessel, and she traded from the West India Docks to Bombay. She carried 12 A.B.s, 6 apprentices, and 2 ordinary seamen, and made a very smart passage, returning back to Dundee with jute. The Talavera afterwards loaded cargo at London for Calcutta, thence to Melbourne,

A spell ashore at various jobs soon came to an end, and about 1890 he took to the sea again, joining the Zealandic. He recalled one incident particularly. The Wellington was in Nelson, but owing to a damaged rudder she was not allowed to put to sea by herself, and was consequently towed to Lyttelton, the trip taking a day and a half. The Penguin and the Takapuna were two of the ships on which Mr. Luxton subsequently served, the Penguin in those days running a fortnightly service to Dunedin from northern ports.

Mr. Luxton considers it was a pity that the lonic should have been broken up, as she might have been used as a training vessel for New Zealand boys anxious to join the Navy or Mercantile Marine. The recently-repox-ted remarks of Captain W. H. Hartman regarding the need for encouragement and development of the Navy and Merchant Service receive his heartiest endorsement.

and then on to Mauritius, where Mr. Luxton left on account of sickness. It was after he recovered that he joined the barquentine Jasper, a picture of which was reproduced on this page recently, the vessel taking a cargo of sugar for Nelson. The Jasper was a beautiful sea boat, and could be very speedy in favourable conditions. Mr. Luxton was paid Is a month on the voyage to Nelson, and he landed with the sum of 2s as a result of the trip.