SIZE A PENALTY

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 497, 3 April 1933, Page 2

SIZE A PENALTY

BRITAIN'S FATTEST MAN ' DEBAjRRED FROM WORK. WEIGHS OVER 30 STONE. The most pathetic man dn .Ehglaiid to-day is Mr. F. W. Lane, of New Kent Ro'ad, London. He has been out of work for six years, simply because he is possihly the fattest man in the British Isles. ^ There is no douht thai? Mr. Lane is fat, says the News of the World. He is more than fat — he is huge. He is just over six feet in height, his ehest is 64 inches, his waist is ahout the same, and his neck is 25 inches! And he weights over 30 stone! Yet he is only 49 and he can walk 20 miles a day with th ehest of hikers. Until six years ago Mr. Lane Had always been connected with the hrewing trade. He started as a harmah and finished as a manager. Bad trade and competition cost him his joh. Since 1926 he hs not been able to get a post because of his size. Actually he knows many trades, .but his tremendous disability always finishes him. When he applies for a post he is alwayd met with a .smile and dispensed with immediately because of his looks 'and stature. When an interviewer saw him at his home, he talked of his great handicap. It was a very small, square room with no vestige of adornment. Mrs. Lane and . five children live in this room. "I am the most unfortunate man in England," said Mr. Lane. "I cannot do anything because everyhody laughs at me. I dare not answer an advertisement because I know exactly what will happen when I see the advertiser. You see, I am over 30 stone now, and I tbink I .am igaining every day. The only normal thing ahout me is that I take 71 in hats. My suits have to he specially .made for me, .and I am sure that I am the f attest and heaviest man in the British Isles. "But is it any satisfaction to me? No, it isn't! I've tried every joh under the sun. I've even tried the circus and the freak side-shows hy letter, but no thing happens. I can't get anything. The very sight of my size puts people off." Mr. Lane has lived fhrough ia life of jokes. Every day he encounters them. Every time he gets on a hus someone asks him how mtany tickets h'e wants. Every time he passes through a door someone says that modern doors should he made much wider. And he .takes it 'all in good part. But still he cannot get a .job, and worse than that, he sometimes cannot even get food for his wife and five children. Mr. Lane might not he the fattest

man on record, hut he is the most tragic. The famous "Fat Man" is Daniel Lambert, who was the governor of Leicester Gaol in 1791. He had a waist measurement of 9ft 4in, and weighed 521 stone just before his ■death. At present the record is said to he held hy a man now living in Los Angeles, whose weiight is 561 •stone. Yet none of these famous fat men, it seems, has been handicapped hy his weight. Mr. Lane knows all ahout them. He reads everything he can ahout heavy people, so that he. might not miss an opportunity of finding out exactly how they overcome their disability. "But," as he said when his visitor left his small home, "the world seems to have no use for a fat man to-day."