PEARL WEDDING

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 117, 20 May 1939, Page 18

PEARL WEDDING

CELEBRANTS IN DUNEDIN

Thursday was a very important occasion for Mr. and Mrs. Richard Charles Waghorn, of South Dunedin, for it was the sixty-fifth anniversary of their wedding at St. Peter's Church, Islington, London, states the "Otago Daily Times." Mr. Waghorn is 84 years of age, and his wife is 82, and both have been looking forward with no little enthusiasm to the celebration of their pearl wedding.

Eighteen months after their wedding, Mr. and Mrs. Waghorn, both of whom are Londoners, decided to try their fortune in New Zealand, and after a long voyage on the Corona arrived .at Port Chalmers in February, 1876. Mr. Waghorn said that he had read all about New Zealand "from the year one," and he was glad he had made up his mind to come out to the Dominion. He retains many interesting memories of his arrival. He built a house at Selwyn for himself and his wife out of timber cut from the bush, and for a while they had to cook in Maori fashion. Then he and his wife built a chimney and the cooking was done inside. There were just a few shops like shacks in Princes Street in those days, with a hotel every 100 yards. He remembers when the bullock wagons used to come in from Mount Cargill loaded with firewood. LONDON MEMORIES. Mr. Waghorn has lived practically all his married life in Dunedin except for two years spent in Melbourne. With his wife he went for a trip Home in 1905, and they had no regrets that they had left their native London. When they left the huge city workmen were employed for 10, 12, and 14 hours a day for a few shillings a week, and it was the promise of an eighthour day and 8s a day that induced Mr. Waghorfi to set sailxfor New Zealand. His trip Home recalled many memories of old London. He remembers seeing Queen Victoria and the then Prince of Wales and he remembers quite well the great Tooley Street fire when the Thames was literally afire with melted fat from the blazing stores.

Mr. and Mrs. Waghorn. have one son and two grandchildren.

Many New Zealanders visiting England have taken the opportunity to go across to Holland to see the bulb fields, which are a galaxy of colour at this time of the year. The grounds of the New York World's Fair will also be an attraction for garden lovers this year, for in addition- to 1,000,000 tulip bulbs planted throughout the Fair grounds, 30,000 pansy plants, the first of a shipment of 400,000, have been planted by the 50 landscape gardeners who are setting out the plants in beds of white, yellow, light and dark blue.