"THE BEST GOD EVER MADE"

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 62, 31 March 1937, Page 4

"THE BEST GOD EVER MADE"

Sir Harry Lauder's Tribute to New Zealand SH0RT STAY IN NAPIER ' ' You 've a glorious, • beautiful countjy—the best that God ever made. Buf loo'k after it. Appreciate and enjoy it. Tliat's my adviee to you young people." , ' Thus Sir Harry Lauder, who passed through Napier to-day on his way to Taupo to have a week's fishing. Looking as energetie and happy-go-lucky a'S a healthy man of 30, Sir Harry in his 66th year complains of no troubles, no aches and no pains. With a full eupply of trunks, he left the Masonio Hotel by car at 10 o 'cloek this morning full of joy at the thought of a week's angling — his favourite outdoor sport. "Well, what can I tell you, gentlemen?" he asked Pressmen who calied upon him. Did he like New Zealand? he was asked. "I wouldn't come here so often if I didn't, would I?" he replied. "It'a a glorious country, and I'll be back as soon as I poBsibly can. Tiour^ people are wonderfully kind to me. I like you all. I had a couple of Scots nights with a Scots bunch in Wellington the other day and thoroughly enjoyed myself. I also met a lot of good friends in Invercargill. Everywhere I go I meet people whom I like and who soem to like me." Taupo and the Waikato river are Sir Harry 's favourite fishing waters. On a previous visit to New Zealand he did a lot of fishing on the Waikato, and tsent home to Scotland a 9 lb. frout and a 9ilb. trout, which he had set up and mounted as souvenirs. i "I feel as fresh and agile to-day as I did 30 years ago," he added. "J'm 66 now and I'll sing as long as the Lord lets me keep my voice. A singing voice is one of God's gifts, you know. I have been given the gift of composing as well, so my work has been, and still is, very interesting. I originat© all my own songs, compose the musie and build up the character to go with each song. "I started to sing as a boy aged 12, when I was h'alf-time schoolboy and half -time worker at flax, hemp and jute packing. Twelve years lnter I took up singing professionally, and now, at the age of 66, I'm still singing, and I'll keep on singing as long as God let's me." Give Sir Harry Lauder plenty of sunshine, fishing, laughter and good-fellow-ship and he'll ask nothing more of life. To spend a quarter of an hour in his company is better than any medicine to the depressed spirit. For everyone he has a winning smile. He is sincere in his high regard of New Zealand and its people. He loves this country, and when after another month he goes back home to Scotland he will malce a genuine endeavour to return as soon as he can. Sir Harry finds his greatest happiness in life by iningling with his fellow-men in pleasing companionship.