LONE MISSIONARY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21758, 24 March 1934, Page 3 (Supplement)

LONE MISSIONARY

DISTANT ISLAND HOME ADRIFT FROM CIVILISATION From the height of luxury to the most primitive civilisation in the world, where even the bare necessities of life aro is the step the Rev. Harold Wilde is cheerfully taking. With 12 tons of luggage he sailed recently from Southampton in the luxury liner Atlantis. His 350 fellow-passengers are looking forward to two months of sunshine cruising, but Mr. Wilde has started out to " take over " Tristan da Cunha, a tiny island in the South Atlantic, the loneliest and most primitive of British possessions. Seven miles long, it is 1400 miles from the nearest human life. Not onlv will Mr. Wilde be the spiritual father of the 170 islanders, but ho will also act as magistrate, dentist, doctor, and general guardian of lm parishioners. But this jovial 40-year-old minister is not easily daunted by a job that will be one of the most difficult in the world. His luggage includes radio sets and an electrical generator, which lie hopes to be able to work from a waterfall on the island and to charge tho batteries of his radio sets from it. "Radio would be a great boon to the islanders, for their only link with the outside world at present is the supply ship which arrives with stores once a year," s>aid Mr. Wilde, who as an old soldier is used to hardships. 1 joined the Artists Rifles as a private in 1915, and later was gazetted to the Lancashire Regiment." Mr. Wilde saw service in Palestine, was badly wounded in France, and after the war was ordained at Liverpool Cathedral and sent to St.-Helens. " I've always been a preacher," he said. " When I was 12 years old a London paper printed an article, ' The Boy Preacher of * Lancashire,' about me." . . Mr. Wilde is married, but his wire is not accompanying him. She is in Blackpool, looking after her aged father. N -