PRACTICAL SYMPATHY

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXX, Issue 5468, 30 August 1929, Page 2

PRACTICAL SYMPATHY

UNFORTUNATE RAILWAYMAN.

SIGHT OF BOTH EYES LOST. “I thank you fellow-railwaymen and the public on behalf of my wife, my family, and myself for the magnificent practical sympathy shown me in my misfortune,” declared Mr George F. Kennedy at the Addington Railway Workshops (Christchurch) this week, in accepting the title deeds of his now freehold home in Jeffreys Road, Bryndwr, and a cheque for £2OO. The mortgage on Mr Kennedy’s home was lifted and the cheque given by a fund to which the public and railwaymen all over New Zealand contributed. Mr Kennedy, who has a wife and family of three, lost the sight of both his eyes last year after eight years’ service, as a fitter at the Addington Workshops. One of his eyes was penetrated by a splinter from a steel pin ; that was in November of last year. Mr Kennedy, after having his eye removed, was back at work only five weeks before the bursting of a gauge glass on an engine severed the ball of his other eye, which also had to be removed. The Government granted him a compassionate allowance of £2OOO. His workmates and three men representing the public carried through an energetic canvass for funds. Helped by railwaymen from all over New Zealand, the fund rose to £llO9 18s 9d. With this amount the committee in charge paid off the £794 mortgage on Mr Kennedy’s house, arranged for the putting in of the sewer, and will see that his house is painted and a fowlhouse erected. Even then there will be a credit balance in the fund of £2OO.