RETIRES AT LAST

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 2, 4 January 1932, Page 7

RETIRES AT LAST

FAMOUS STEWARDESS

many; adventures

LONDON, 21st December. Nicknamed "Ma" on the waterfronts from Itio to Hongkong, Mis. M. A. Phillips, aged 75, has resigned after 50 years' employment as a stewardess, mostly with the Inchcapo group. "She has travelled 3,000,000. miles, and is the only Inchcape employee who mutinied and got away with it," says her old shipmate, Captain J. H. Hamilton, who was on the Kyarra when she was commandeered as a troopship in Melbourne.

Mrs. Phillips, on that occasion, refused to sign ofl like the other stewardesses, saying tho officers would still want their socks darned. Eventually she was retained.

"When a German submarine shelled the Eyatra in tho Mediterranean, and Australian navy gunners on board sank the submarine, Captain Hamilton went down to comfort "Ma," fearing that she would be nervous at tho firing. He was astonished to learn it was not her baptism of fire, as she had been the wife of a settler in Western Queensland, and defended the homestead with a revolver when aborigines stabbed her husband with a poisoned spear, crippling him, and. forcing her to seek employment.

When the Kyarra was torpedoed in the Channel, "Ma" kept the survivors amused with tales of women crooks andsharpers, when tho Kyarra was carrying people to the Coolgardie gold rush Mrs. Phillips-• received recognition ±rom the Royal Humane Society for bravery when the Kanowna was wrecked at Wilson's Promontory, and also when the Arafura broke her propeller shaft in a typhoon, and drifted helplessly. The Arafura was carrying a large number of touristß at the time