ACTIVE NONAGENARIAN

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 140, 15 May 1936, Page 8

ACTIVE NONAGENARIAN

SAILOR AND FARMER. YOUNG AT NINETY-FOUR. Physical fitness, which some men half 'his age would be happy to possess, with an amazing vitality and alertness which completely belies the fact that he has seen nine decades of life, seem to have endowed Mr George Davison, of 273 Church Street Palmerston North, with the secret of pernetual youth. Mr Davidson celebrated Ins 94th birthday last Anzac Day, and is enjoying a very active and healthy life. Few can guess his age within ten years of the real Mr Davison thinks nothing of walking well over a mile to town when he misses the bus, and makes ~ stroll. He cuts tlie hedge, mows the lawn and carries out other duties so easily as te suggest he can clip half a century off his age "7,1' ■ J ening years have not brought infirnu y and frailty to him, but rather a greater virilitv and complacent satisfaction with life, which he considers has treated him generously. Jim counts nothing to him when others are recording the passage ot every year, and in six years, he hopes confidently, he will assert his claim to distinction as a centenarian. 1 think I am doing quite all Light, he commented to a “Standard representatl^forn" < Lincolnshire, Mr Davison had an early thirst for active life, and he had this gratified by serving his apprenticeship before the mast on Baltic windjammers engaged in the timber trade, which meant hard work, for the sailors not only had. to man the ship, but to load and unload the cargo. t Signing on the barque Rose of Montrose as an able seaman, Mr Davison came to New Zealand / 2 years ago, and at Wellington liked this country so well that he decided lie preferred the land to shipboard. He slipped his cable,” as he humorously puts it, and for fifteen years worked in Stokes Valley, splitting posts and rahs Bringing his wife and family, the latter numbering six, to the Manawatu, Mr Davison settled in the district known as Cloverlea, and, workacre block after clearing it of . heavy bush. Thirty years ago he retired and took up his residence in the city. “I landed in New' Zealand with 2s 6d in mv pocket,” said Mr Davison. “Now I have provided for myself, and New Zealand owes me nothing. lam verv well satisfied and have never regretted by choice. I said w*hen I left the London docks that I would never return to England again. Mr Davison has resided in the Manawatu district for 57 years, and has ten surviving children.