GATHERING OF FAMOUS

Greymouth Evening Star, 7 May 1936, Page 10

GATHERING OF FAMOUS

RECORD-BREAKERS AND I’IONEE BOfs’DON, March 21. A pioneer trans-Atlantic flyer and the oldest tram-driver in London will be two of the guests at a banquet in London on November 13. Invitations are being sent to men and women who have made records in any form of transport during the past 40 years. , The oldest hansom “cabby, the 1936 winning boat-race crew, famous racing motorists, the champion jockey, stratosphere record-holders, the oldest passenger locomotice driver, a veteran privat echauffeur, the

captain of the largest motor liner, a recci d-holding deep-sea diver ... all will be among the guests. In .June, 1919, Alcock .and Brown Hew the Atlantic from Newfoundland to Western Ireland. Pioneer of this High!. Sir Arthur Whitten Brown has been invited to the banquet. Colonel Lindbergh will be another guest. One of the most notable of all —Sir Charles Kingsford Smith —will be absent, as will that other famous little Australian — Bert Hinkler. There will l)e George Summerscale, who has been driving trams for 49 years. He is 71. Mr. Sunimerscale, who lives at Clapton, drove a horsetram in 1887. He is still driving. Frederick Foster. Saffron Walden, Essex, the omnibus driver with the longest record, will be there.-too. Foster began with a six-horse omnibus in 18S3 and retired after 51 years’ service in 1935. Hairy England, who drove the first Lube train, died in 1931. But another veteran of the tube service will attend the banquet. There will be M. Louis Blediot, hero of the first cross-Channel Hight, and Miss Jean Batten, Mrs. Amy Mollison, C. W. A. Scott and T. Campbell Black, of Australian air race fame, Tommy Rose and Schneider Trophy flyers. Commander Claud GrahameWhite, who will also be there, is a pioneer of air mails in this country. The banquet is being organised by the 19th Century Circle of Motorists. Famous motorists will include Sir

Malcolm Campbell, George Eyston, John Cobb and Mrs. Gwenda Stewart. Herr Ernst Henne, holder of the world’s motor-cycle speed record, will be there. So will the champion cyclist. An Italian, the first man to use the “iroji-nian” diving suit, will be another guest. Motor-boat speed record-holders will bo represented by Gar Wood, the American.