11 HOURS ON CUFF.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 470, 3 June 1932, Page 5

11 HOURS ON CUFF.

Youth Signalled to Four Ships. "CRAMP ATTACKED ME." (Special to the “ Star.”) LONDON, April 27. This is the story of William George Dixon, a Salcombe (Devon) youth of 20, who was rescued this morning from a cliff to which he had clung for eleven hours. “ I climbed the cliff at Bolberry Hope Cove (Devon) to reach a bird’s nest,” he said. “ When I got to it I found I could not get back, and I had to climb 70 feet more, having only finger-holds. “ I was standing on a tuft of grass with just room for my two feet and a sheer drop of 100 feet below me. “ To keep myself up I had to cling to the face of the cliff'. “ I shouted and shouted. Four ships went by, but for hours no one saw “ When the sun sank and I was in pitch darkness, my biggest comfort was the flashing of the Eddystone light. “ My voice began to fail, and as I moved half my ledge crashed down to the beach. I had to stand on one leg for over an hour. “ Cramp was attacking me, and the remainder of my ledge was slipping away when the rescue party found me.” Police and coastguards had been searching for Dixon with electric torches. When at two o’clock in the morning they heard his cries, they found an overhanging cfiff top, and the rope they threw over was out of Dixon’s reach.

Many attempts were made before Dixon could get hold of the rope and secure it round his body. He was then hauled to the top, after eleven horns on the cliff. The rescue alone took two hours.

THE VIRTUES AND VICES OF MEN

Men have their virtues, their vices, their heroism, their perverseness; they possess and exercise all that is good and all that is bad in this world.— Napoleon I.