GALLANT OLD SALT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20426, 30 November 1929, Page 2 (Supplement)

GALLANT OLD SALT.

NOTED LIFEBOAT COXSWAIN.

CAREER OF JAMES CABLE.

SAVER OF MANY LIVES

Failing sight is affecting gallant James Cable, the famous'. lifeboat coxswain of Aldcbiirgh, who will be 78 next month. '.A splendid figure of man, his eyesight he saidrecently, . is his only trouble. Those bravo, keen blue eyes have done splendid service for nearly half a century looking out from the shore over the stonuy North Sea to help ships in distress.

Mr. Cable, who retired in 191Y, keeps no count of the ships or the lives he has saved.' Testimonials from the Roval Humane Society line the walls of bis Jittie 'parlour, and its bronze medal is one of his mcst treasured- possessions. $0 also is a fine silver, cup, enamelled with the arms o!" Finland and engraved -with an inscription from the Finnish Senate of prewar days, testifying to the coxswain's valour in lesouing a ship from Helsingfors.

How this gallant old sailor first went down to the sea which, while he himself was still' a small child} claimedthe lives-of- his father and grandfather is told by himself. "When I.was 33," he said, " I went to work at the shipyard where I hey used to build fishing smacks. I had been there about three months when Pilot Henry Barley, master of a fishing smack, came into the yard ami said hci wanted a cabin-boy. This was at. 10.20 a.m., and the vessel - was to leave at oue o'clock. I ran home, and found nay mother Jiad gone to a wedding. The church was full, and I could not get in, so.,it was twelve o'clock before I saw my mother come out. I told her 1 was going to sea, and that I had to be there bj one o'clock. She cried and 'took on,' anil said I should not go. But an old lady with her said: 'lf the boy waqts to go ti> sea, lettfhim go." Half-a-crown a Week. " So my mother bought ine some warm clothes, a~nd I was there at one o'clock. We started for the fishing grounds on the east coast of Scotland, and went through the Pentland Firth and round the Orkneys."

James Cable's first wage was half-a-crown a week. But in a few months he was made cook at four shillings a week. At sixteen he was earning ten shillings a week. Four years later he made his first long voyage, tD and the Indies, m a tiny barque <of 500 tons, ttie Eleanor, which sailed 47.000 miles in 14 months.

Many strange adventures followed v.istil James"C'able.-found a berth in a handsome liner bound for Australia where later on ho settled down to sheep-farming with an uncle. He was ■ there for /three years, but at 124 he was home again.*in jiUdeburgh; and there it . was that lie began his remarkable career with the gallantlifeboats of that fine old town, earning his living an a fisherman meanwhile. Mr, Cable's first adventures were with the George Houndsfield, of which he was made second coxswain.- ' On January 18. 1881, only a few months after joining-tlip crew, hj« took part in the rescue of four separate ship's crews in one of the worst winter <ilays ever known on the coast. Many i a gallant adventure followed in the ten succeeding years during which the George Houndsfield did duty. She ended her career on November 1, 1890, and is still to be seen on the beach at Aldeburgh. Mr. Cable uses her to store his nets in.

Service" in Wartime. " A new' boat: the Aldeb'urgh, was built at Yarmouth under the. guidance of James .Cable and his comrades -..Sbe-wa*. low* on December 7, 1899, with—stx- of--her crew. The Mark Lane, the City 6i "W incbester, "lind'.the Edward G. Dresden carried on Hie'fine work, and James Cable was foremost in it all. During the war he was culled to the aid of many a mined and torpedoed vessel. But in 1917 felt he ought to retire in favour of a younger man. Now 3i!Er. Cable's portrait hangs in the Town Hall, and jlie gallant old salt, in his honoured retirement, is pointed out t:o visitors by his admiring townsmen as he walks "bv the shore' and in, the streets oi their pretty little town.