FRIENDSHIP BY POST

Greymouth Evening Star, 12 November 1928, Page 10

FRIENDSHIP BY POST

. SEVENTY YEARS OF LETTERS. Every week for more than seventy . years a. Bheerness family has kept in touch through the post with a family in irOland —and not a member of the. one has ever seen a member ' of the. . other, states the “Daily’Mail.” .. i ’ ThiS'Temarka’ble correspondence began in 1855, when a relative of the late. Mi’. Hugh Conaghan, of Newtowncun- ■ niii'g'ham, County Donegal, disappeared 'from a .merchant ship in which he was serving. The late Mr. Henry George, of Sheerness, then a naval petty officer and one of the missing man’s friends, wrote to his family in Ireland in a- vain attempt to trace him. From that time until Mr. Conaghan died Mr. George continued to V, rite, -to him. Gradually'the'subjects Of the original letter faded from the correspondence, which became a record cf • "domestic' happenings in both 'families and of public eVents in' Slieerness and Newtowncifriningham. ; In 1887 Mr. George died, 'blit liis son, Mr. Walter George, continued the correspondence. Mr. Walter George is now 63. His round, smiling face expressed astonishment when, at his home'in Meyrick road, it was suggest 1 ’’ ed to him that the correspondence was a remarkable one. He said: “I simply carried on after iny father died—naturally! To exchange newspapers and' letters with old Mr. Conagh'an’s fain) Jly became a habit, as you might say. The'fact that we liaVe never,seep anything of-tire family Hasn’t made .any difference. I 'often say in my letters, however,- that I am looking forward to meeting Them, and oiie of these days, ■perhaps-I shall''find my way to Ireland ami look them up, or they may pop -ir. -here one flay. “But if to-day we meet in the street■or anywhere else away. . from our homes, wo'Should pass each other by, for we haven’t the least idea of what any of tho Conaghan family look like, nor do they know what sort of a man 1 am. You see, we have never troubled to exchange photographs.” Mr. George has a son who, it is expected, will in turn carry on the correspondence.