SUFFERED IN SILENCE

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 374, 8 November 1932, Page 3

SUFFERED IN SILENCE

APPEAL FOR ASSISTANCE OF PENNILESS SHIPS' OFFICERS. Silence that has long concealed | hardship and suffering was broken in ! Liverpool on August 28, when Com- j modore Bertram F. Hayes, head of the White Star fleet until 1924, broadcast j an appeal for funds to help penniless ■ ships' officers. A few years ago many of these officers when they returned from a voyage had handsome homes in the pleasanter suburbs of the city. To-day | their homes and belongings have gone | — sold in an attempt to make ends meet — and the officers and their wives and families are living in apartments or with friends. One ship's officer is serving as a conductor on a bus, another is working as night watchman for a few shillings a week on vessels laid up ' in^. dock. There are doz-ens of" cases of officers serving before the mast. One vessel, the Lassell, was manned entirely by officers when she last left Loverpool. Most tragic of all is the case of a man who once commanded a crew and was reduced to such straits that he went playing in public houses.