FAREWELL TO LEVIN’S POSTMASTER.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 2716, 3 April 1924, Page 2

FAREWELL TO LEVIN’S POSTMASTER.

MR. A. HAWKE RETIRES.

FORTY YEARS SERVICE COMPLETED. Having completed forty years in the service of tire Post and Telegraph Department of New Zealand Mr. A . H. Hawke, postmaster at Levin, and late of Foxton and Alarton, retired from that position on Monday on superannuation. Air Hawke leaves the service with the knowledge that in Levin, as in the other centres in which he has been located, he takes with him the sincere goodwill of the whole community. Air Hawke joined the Department in Grey town in 1883 as message hoy and remained there fclthree year.-, training under the champion iclegraph receiver of New Zealand and one time postmaster, Mr R. C. Black. From Greytown All' Hawke was transferred to Marlon in 1881), he and the postmaster comprising the staff. Alarion was a growing centre, however, and from this size the office grew during his connection with the town to having a stall' of l!(i and a telephone list of :{()() .subscribers. Following this he had spent live years as postmaster at Alarton Junction, from 1908 to 1913, and from that time until 1921 had been postmastr of Foxton, going io Levin two years and four months ago.

In replying to felicitous speeches a! a farewell tendered him at Levin. Mr Hawke said the gathering rather took him by surprise. He had certainly-expressed a “wish that no presentation should be made knowing the hardship imposed in this way on junior members of the staff who had to put their hands in their poekets sometimes every few weeks. Regardin" the battering things Hint had been said of the relations which had existed between himself and the staff, he had, when he ame to Levin two years ago. come with the intention of making the staff iris friends. He did not consider that there was a weakening of discipline necessarily entailed by doing so and it made things pleasanter for both the postmaster and the staff.

During the whole of his experience he had found that the best could always he got out of the staff by maintaining good relations with them. He had never believed in being too strict on a man and if he found any member of his staff inclining to slackness he had talked to him quietly in his office rather than report him and had found that the results justified his action. Now that it came to actually severing his connection with the Department, he found himself regretting the necessity" of the step. He had spent some very pleasant years in the P. and T. and the regrets were no doubt only natural. However, he was going to live in Levin and hoped to continue his interest in the members of the staff and everything connected with the Department. (Prolonged applause). He was now retiring voluntarily on the completion of his 40 years of service, feeling that he was entitled to a rest after his long connection with the Department. The function concluded with the singing of “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow” and three hearty cheers for the departing postmaster. —Chronicle.