ADVENTURE IN SPAIN

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23004, 6 October 1936, Page 7

ADVENTURE IN SPAIN

WELLINGTON PILOT IN AIR FIGHT SEEKER OF THRILLS Well known in aviation circles as a: enterprising pilot, Mi Eric N. Griffiths, a New Zealander who has been wounded in an air fight with rebel aeroplanes in Spain, has already packed much flying adventure into his young life. A son of Mr and Mrs W. Griffiths, of Muritai road, Eastbourne, and an old boy of Wellington College, he learned to fly with the Wairarapa Aero Club about five or six years ago. Flight-lieutenant J. M. Buckeridge was his instructor. For a time he accompanied the late Squadron-leader M. C. M'Gregor and the late "Scotty" Fraser in a barnstorming tour of the Dominion and then left for China, where he spent eight months h the service of various war lords and in ferrying machines from Shanghe 1 to their headquarters. After that he returned to New Zealand and acquired a commercial pilot's licence. He joined the second tyrd Antarctic Expedition in 1933 Sir MacPherson Robertson's announcement of the < London-Mel-bourne Air Race brought him back to New Zealand, ho./e\er, and for some time he was engaged in an endeavour to raise finance for an entry in the race In this he was unsuccessful, and about 18 months ago left for England, without any fixed plans. There he found some work in aviation, and was employed for some time by Imperial Airways, Ltd. Then he was injured in a crash of a private machine in France. The last news his parents had of his whereabouts, until a cablegram announced his progress toward recovery in Madrid hospital, .vas that he had entered the British Army and was in the Rifle Brigade He had his twenty-first birthday in the Antarctic and his twenty-third in Spain. The first intimation of his son's adventure that Mr Griffiths had was in an Eastbourne bus. Mr Griffiths had read a copy of the Dominion, including the news of the Spanish war, but the cablegram about his son was overlooked. He passed th* paper to his seat companion, "Is this your son who has been wounded in Spain?" the reader "Don't think so," said Mr Griffiths. Then he looked, and saw that it was.

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A singer has been awarded £135 damages in an action which she brought against a lion-tamer, the leader of an orchestra, and the owner of a Copenhagen amusement park. The singer, Madame Sophie Hoffman, was rehearsing in the park when she was suddenly terrified by the appearance of a lion. She was so upset that she could not carry on with the rehearsal and * her voice, she declared, was aflected by the incident for a long

time afterwards. The lion, it transpired, was quite harmless, but the lion-tamer was ordered to contribute towards the damages because he had not told Madame Hoffman that the animal was not dangerous. The leader of the orchestra was penalised because he failed to take immediate action when the lion appeared, whilst the third man had to pay a share since the incident happened in his establishment.

It Talks: The shop front display tells the story eloquently but it is a your best selling agent. Advertising fixture which attracts only th<* passers-by. The Otago Daily Times carries the tidings everywhere. It 13 pays. Scientists cannot explain why every native of Tiltepec, a small town in Mexico, is either born«blind or loses his or her sieht soon after birth.