VETERAN MASON

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24776, 28 November 1941, Page 4

VETERAN MASON

A VISITOR TO DUNEDIN Membership of the Masonic craft appears to be conducive to longevity, for amongst the delegates at the Communication at present being held in Dunedin is one in his ninety-first year —Mr Hugh Smith, who has come all the way from Inangahua Junction, bringing with him his son, aged 68! The veteran is deputy master of the Robert Burns Lodge, Reefton. It goes almost without saying that this nonagenarian comes from Scotland. He arrived in Port Chalmers in the ship Auckland in 1875. Like many other pioneers, he has in the earning of a living played many parts, ranging from baking, bushfelling, and road* making to the teaching of music—and the publishing and selling of his own poems. Hale, hearty, and alert, mentally and physically, Mr Smith, who has reared a family of 11, and does not smoke, and barely drinks, is missing nothing of both the work and the entertainment associated with the Communication, and as a side-line he recited one of his own compositions at the recent Burns Club concert. He built his own cottage at Inangahua Junction, and, when not cultivating his vegetable and flower gardens, finds recreation in playing the violin, flute, or flageolet, or in writing more poems. His personal doctors' bills in 90 odd years would, he says, be covered by a £5 note, so that the social security medical benefits controversy would probably not vitally disturb his peace of mind.