GIFT FOR THE KING.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 57, Issue 245, 28 July 1937, Page 8

GIFT FOR THE KING.

FROM LONELIEST AND POOREST ISLAND.

Mrs Frances. Repetto, who rules over the Robinson Crusoe community of Tristan da Cunlia, loneliest and poorest island in the world, sent homemade woollen socks and a sweater to King George as Coronation gifts. The islancTs padre, the Rev. Harold Wilde, arrived in London last April after a montlis-long journey from the wastes of the South Atlantic with presents for the Royal family. Among them was a mat for Queen Elizabeth.

These simple presents needed ihe whole resources of the islanders, working for months, to produce. Two hundred of them, working with old-fash-ioned implements, slowly watched their gifts take shape. Primitive spinning wheels, handed down from the first settlers, made toe socks from wool obtained from the handful of sheep, and in the rude huts which shelter them from the furious gales the women laboriously helped ( with their knitting. The “Queen” (Mrs Repetto) set an example, tirelessly knitting hour after hour, weaving on a cumbrous spinning wheel of her ow n make.

Then, when the presents wore at last completed, they were taken to the tiny stone-and-tin chapel, where they were laid on the altar and blessed.

The padre took the precious parcel on a South African warship to Cape Town.