OLD PILOT'S PASSING

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXVI, Issue 3440, 8 March 1932, Page 2

OLD PILOT'S PASSING

DEATH FROM BROKEN HEART. "CURSE OF RETIREMENT." There was something fine, even noble, about the. passing of an old Bristol Channel pilot the other day, writes Mr. Andrew Soutar in an article on "The Curse of Retirement," in the Daily Mail. He had reached the age of 81, when, regretfully, they told him he must retire. In vain he protested that he was no older than Mr. Justice Avory, who is still a power on the judicial bench.

For days after his banishment from the scene of his toil the old pilot passed the hours at the pier head, watching the vessels come in from the sea and go out of port. For 60 years he had guided them in and out, and it was hard for him to believe that they could do without him now that he had passed his eightieth year.

"He would come home and sob at the loss of his work," the widow said, "and he collapsed and died of a broken heart." There's a very old story of a boatswain who retired from the sea because of an unexpected legacy. He built himself a bungalow near the sea, and every morning a hired lad hammered on the door at 5 o'clock to rouse him from sleep. "Why" asked a friend.

The man replied: "The lad shouts, 'Bo'sun, the cap'n wants yer.' And it's grand bein' able to shout back: 'You tell the cap'n to go to Jericho!"