100 YEARS OLD

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 99, 29 March 1937, Page 11

100 YEARS OLD

RESIDENT OF HASTINGS. HASTINGS, Alarch 2s). Air George William Lines, St. George's Road, Hastings, to-dav attained his 1 OOtli birthday. In spite of his great age Air Lines is very active, though slightly deaf. “L can oat anything, and I am looking forward to having a good slice of that cake on Alonday,” Mr Lines said in an interview on Saturday. “F have not smoked for the past 4U years, hut I am not saying that is the reason for my being 100 years old. 1 can still read, chop wood for the house, and potter about in a garden, and my memory is ns good as gold.’’ This he immediately proved by reciting clearly and I vigorously a poem which he learnt over 90 years ago while convalescing from his only serious illness. Born in the year of Queen Victoria's accession to the Throne. Air Lines has lived under the reigns of five sovereigns. The Lines family sailed for Australia in 1855 aboard a Dutch vessel, Fop Smith, in order to share in the rumoured fortunes being made at that time on the Australian goldfields. Ah Lines still has the passenger contract ticket used by the family for their trip, the cost of which worked out at £137 10s. Australia did not treat the Lines family at all generously, however, and with the idea of trying his

luck on the Thames Valley goldfields, he came over to New Zealand. Still fortune was elusive, and in 1870 he answered a call for men for Hawke’s Ray. At this time there was no such place as Hastings, and Napier was in the nature oi a hamlet. While working at Taradale he mot his wife, who • died eight years ago. Air Lines re- • l tired in 1908 after purchasing his pre--5 | sent property, and for the last 23 years • i has been living quietly hut happily in I his chosen retreat. ■ !