PERSEVERING YOUNG MAN

Taranaki Daily News, 31 January 1934, Page 5

PERSEVERING YOUNG MAN

AFTER THE SOUTHERN CROSS PURSUIT THROUGH DOMINION. DETERMINED TO GET A JOB. . Mr. H. Sergent, Wanganui,, is evidently aiming at the distinction of being the . world’s most persevering young man. Determined to get a job with Sir Chajdet Kingsford Smith for the tour of the Southern Cross he has followed the machine on foot from town to town, renewing his application at each place. Ha stated at Christchurch that he is going to “keep on keeping on” until he does get that job. Mr. Sergent is 19 and a mechanic by trade. He wants to make aviation his livelihood. He is a member of the Wanganui Aero Club, and has been for a few flights. When it was announced that the Southern Cross was to land at New Plymouth, he decided to go there and try to get attached to the staff. He set out on foot from Wanganui, and reached New Plymouth in time to be there while , the Southern Cross was there, having walked’part of the way and got lifts with motor-cars and lorries the rest of the distance. The Southern Cross crew was considerably surprised when this young • man turned up with a . tale of having walked from Wanganui to become a member of the engineering staff. They gave him a flight in the machine as a reward for his perseverance, and thought they had seen the last of him. He, however, was not to be put off that way. He set off for Palmerston North, travelling by the same means, and carrying some spare, clothes in a little attache-case, sleeping out when he could not get shelter along the road,-and buying “a pie or a bit of. fish and chips” and “visiting an orchard for some fruit” for food. ' ' ■ GIVEN A FEW ODD JOBS. . The young man connected with the machine again at Palmerston. North, / but the Southern Cross party again told him that the staff for the tour was full and there were no likely vacancies. He then went off again, this time for Wellington. He caught up with the Southern Cross, and, not having the heart; to refuse him again, those in charge of tha machine gave him a job washing down the fuselage and doing odd chores. They allowed him to sleep in the machine and gave him 12s for his services. They offered him £l, but Mr. J. T. Pethybridge, the chief engineer, that he absolutely refused to accept it, , though he was nearly “broke.” The Southern Cross party thought the young man had gone clean out of their scheme of things when they left the North Island, but Mr. Sergent had other ideas. With the 12s he had earned he went to a bankrupt sale in Wellington and bought up a-line of cigarette lighters and pencils- and other odds and ends. These things he hawked from house to house in the suburbs and gathered together enough to pay his steamer fare to Lyttelton. “I was a good business man,” he told a reporter to-day. "I bought the cigarette lighters., for 5d and sold them for 25,” At Lyttelton Mr. Sergent was going to walk to Christchurch, but learning that the railway fare was only, a shilling or so he indulged in. the luxury of a train ride. Working out the itinerary of the Southern Cross he concluded that, wjth luck, he could catch up with Sir Charles Kingsford Smith again /in Central Otago. MISSING THE AEROPLANE. Off the trumpet set again, walking some of the way and getting lifts the rest, but his luck was out. By-the time he had got to Central tago the Southern Cross had been there and gone again. He stayed in Dunedin, where he has friends, and then set. cut again, determined to catch the Southern Cross in Christchurch. Last week, with blisters on his feet as evidence of the walking he had done, he turned up at the Wigram Aerodrome. ' ' . . \ The Southern Cross crew, thinking this insistent adventurer had been left behind in the North Island, took some time to get over the shock of hearing that he had been walking after them ever since they had left Wellington. . They let him sleep in the machine again. Next day when a Sun reporter saw him he was busy with a bucket of water and a rag washing down the machine. ’ , . „ . “I want to get into aviation, tne young man said, “and this seems the best way to do it. I am going to keep on trying until they give me a job. I think they have decided now that the best way out of it is for them to take me on permanently. It has been sar that they will gi ve me a permanent job now.” ■.