OBITUARY

Grey River Argus, 17 May 1944, Page 3

OBITUARY

HUGHIE SMITH.

The death occurred yesterday of Mr. Hughie Smith, of Inangahua Junction, well-known throughout the "West Coast and further afield as a poet in Scots’ vernacular, at the advanced age of 92 years. A native of Kilmarnock, Ayrshire, he came as a young man to the West Coast in the mid-seventies, prior to the Kumara rush, and had lived for 68 years in New Zealand. By trade a baker, he carried on business in the Ahaura and Inangahua districts, and, like the generality of bakers, was of a kindly disposition, rqaking friends wherever he went. His‘ instinct for verse was manifest from his youth, his first composition having been one at the age of 18 before he let his native place, and throughout his life on the West Coast pieces came regularly from his pen at Ahaura, Reefton and the Inangahua Junction. One of his best-known efforts was that on the sad occasion of New Zealand’s greatest colliery disaster, “The Bereaved of Brunner,” while a selection of his works, “Poems of an Ayrshire Scot” was published in book form many years ago. Since then he had produced numerous occasional verses, many of which appeared in the columns of the “Gre v River ''Argus.” The late Mr. Smith had a rare literary ear, his rhyming being faultless, and in his verses he • united with a love of his home land a lively sympathy with liberty, natural beauty, his adopted country, and the traditional camarderie of the West Coast pioneer. Friends throughout the district and in other parity of New Zealand will regret his passing as that of a worthy personality, whose outlook oft recalled the traditions of the Lowland Scot, and whose heart ne’er forsook his ain folk. He was, for fifty years a member of Robert Burns Masonic Lodge. Reefton. Four sons and four daughters survive him, the sons being Hugh (Taylorville), Harry (Kotuku), Robert (Blackball) and Harold (Reefton), while the daughters are Mesdames R. Heston (Reefton), H. Orpwood (Hokitika), T. Williams (Tern uka), and Ross (Australia). The funeral takes place to-morrow afternoon at the Reefton Suburban Ceme-. tery.-