BRITAIN'S OLDEST MAN.

Otaki Mail, 2 January 1924, Page 3

BRITAIN'S OLDEST MAN.

V MAORI WAR VETERAN. AGE GIVEN AS 111 YEARS. Ail inquiry as to who is the oldes survivor ru Britain ol lire Crimea ha elicited a remarkable story of an oli soiuier who, ji ue is correct in statin; tae data oi uis birth, must now be no only me oldest veteran ot tuc iintisi Army, bur probably the oldest mail ii the kingdom. Mr. James Carroll resides at Corn market Street, Birr, Ireland. He was he says, burn on Maica 11, ISO!), in tin purisn ul St. ivieraus, only a lew lime; away from where he is now living. 11 this be correct, he is now 11-1. Whether, he is 114 or not, he is certainly very old. Hut, despite his age ; lie is still vigorous and in possession or all liis faculties, except that he is somewhat deaf, and his memory is not so good, as it used to be. He served in the old 14th Hoot, and is a member of llio Old Comrades’ Association of tile West Yorkshire Regiment (Prince of Wales Own). He takes particular pride in his regiment, and

states that he is the only survivor of the officers and men wh« served in it in his time. Seated at the lire at his lodgings, his eyes lighted up as he recalled memories of his army days for the ediiication of an interviewer. He could not tell the exact date of his enlistment. He "as then, he said, forty or forty-live years of age, but vas put down us thirty-live and was accepted. Ho joined up in Birr, and was sent to Kilkenny, where the regiment was then stationed, and where several other Birr men also were soldiering.

' | With Kegiment to New Zealand. ; I “They are all gone now," lie said. - I “1 am the only one left. If the Prince s of Wales heard ol ! mu he would help me, 1 belonging as I do to his regiment, some [ ! day or other he may hear of me. That j would make me happy. We did not i I land in Crimea," he said, in reply to a i Question. ‘‘ We were under orders for j there, but the orders were countermanded at the last moment, and wo • I sailed for New Zealand instead. ( “It took us a long time to got to (Auckland, where we landed. The morning after we arrived my company (the bth) and another company were sent to j the Te Whaiti country.. Up there we j saw heavy lighting with the Maoris. It I was there that 1 was wounded, and

Colonel Lawton and Captain Felts, my company commander, were killed. “One day volunteers were called Jt'or a special service. I was one oi those that volunteered. There were about fifty of us in the party. The two oitlcers were shot dead, as were three or four of my comrades. I got a bullet | wound under the stomach, and 1 iu-d to I tic it up myself us I lay iu the bush. ! 1 do not. know how long I lay on the I .ground, but I was taken down to AuekI land, where I recovered. “A soldier's life was then different from what it is now. When the rations allowance and stoppages for barrack damages and other things were paid up

Iwc had very little to get —abuut a penny or two a day. On pay day a j i bag of coppers used to bo brought in. 1 A couple of pounds in coppers then went a long way. “When I left the army I got six- j pence a day pension, after increased to 1 is (id a day. When the old age pensions came out 1 got one; I had Ss a week old age pension last yenr. When I got an increase of my army pension to -s 3d a day my old age pension was stopped, and I am worse off now than I was before I got tho increase. ’ ’ Healthy in Spite of Great Age. J Questioned as to his family, Air. Carroll stated that he had one son and three daughters. One daughter is in America, and the other two are in Engln.ii 1. All have their own families. Air. . Carroll invariably wears on his breast the medal of the Mew Zealand campaign. His landlady. Airs. Clark, herself the i wife of an ex-member of the Leinster Regiment, whose sons served through ttie Great War. said that Air. Carroll, , despite his great age, is very healthy. ■ She added that it was difficult for him , to live on his pension and to get some . of the little comforts that he requires. Air. Carroll has an excellent army discharge. He has been a hard-work-ing. industrious man all his life, and is held in the highest esteem by all who knew him. I