WIDOW TURNS SAILOR

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 7 November 1935, Page 6

WIDOW TURNS SAILOR

Voyage From England to Australia in Windjammer AN APPRENTICE OFFICER HOLDS AIR PILOT'S TICKET

(From Our uro correspondent—By Air Mail.) LONDON, Oct. 18.

A woman, young, good-looking, moneyed, widow of a major in the 9th Hussars, stepped into a small boat on. the Deal beach and aa t as pulled towards the four-masted Finnish barque Panope, then standing out to sea. Mrs Douglas Duff was «>tf to join the vessel as an officerLater the Panope moved sloavlv through the Avater bound for Scottish ports; then to Australia, A'ia the Cape of Good Hope. It was Mrs Duff s second voyage. In the first she shipped as tt seaman ,4 X enjoyed every minute of it,’' she said, before she left the beach “We sailed from (Port Lincoln, South Australia, and after a voyage round Capo Worn, which lasted eighteen weeks, we landed our cargo of grain at London on August 14. Ipaid for my passage, but I received my seaman’s Avages. “Why do I do it? Because I love the sea. The Panope hate be'en standing off Deal awaiting favourable winds for tAVo Aveeks. I haA r e taken the opportunity to visit my mother. Mrs Reynolds-Peyton. at her home in Augusta-gardens, Folkstone. “The sea is not my only hobby. I hold an air pilot’s A certificate. When I am aboard the Panope I am an ordinary member of the creAv. If I am told to go aloft, aloft I go. That is all there .is to that.” The boat had arrived. Mrs Duff threw her arms round her mother. “Take care of yourself, my dear,” she saici. “God bless you. See you again' soon.”