EARLY COROMANDEL

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 3, 5 January 1939, Page 11

EARLY COROMANDEL

MINISTER'S MEMORIES

(Special to the "Evening Post.")

AUCKLAND, This Day.

Experiences in three years as a young Methodist minister among the gold-seekers at Coromandel in the late nineties, when the tent township had a population of 1000, are among the recollections of /the Rev. M. K. Gilmour, now in charge of the Willough-by-Methodist circuit in New South Wales. He arrived at Auckland yesterday by the Wanganella from Sydney. .

Mr. Gilmour came to New Zealand from Scotland in 1881 with his parents, who lived at Howick for a number of years, then moved to Tuakau. He became a student at the Prince Albert College in Upper Queen Street, and his first charge after entering the ministry was the scattered community from Tairua, south of Mercury Bay, to Whangapoua, and Coromandel itself. All that territory had to be covered on horseback, and hardship was his daily lot.

"They were exciting days," Mr. Giknour said yesterday. "Everyone in Coromandel worked at fever pitch to find gold; everyone believed ihe would make a fortune. There was always the lucky tomorrow, which never came for a good many, and there was a friendliness that is not so noticeable in some communities today." After three years in the Coromandel territory Mr. Gilmour went to Dannevirke, "\vhere he lived for two years. From there he and his young wife went to Papua, where the nearest doctor was 500 miles distant. Within the scope of their limited knowledge of medicine they had to treat the ailments of the natives.

After a. while Mr. and Mrs. Gilmour averaged 100 patients a day, and in between their study of tropical diseases they had to learn the language and its several dialects, apart from ministering to the spiritual needs of the islanders. They spent 33 years in Papua.