OLDEST BARONET

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 3, Issue 702, 30 November 1933, Page 5

OLDEST BARONET

("Post" Special Correspondent.)

NINiETY -FIYE BUT FINDS NO THRILL IN FLYING

Lonaon, Nov. 11. Colonel Sir Benjamin Bromhead, the oldest living baronet, spent his 95th birthday writing acknowledgements of numerous congratulatory messages which came to him at his ancestnal home, Thurlby Hall, Lincoln shire. He held no party; no great cake adorned with 95 candles was set upon his board. Sir Benjamin comes of a long line of fighting men, and he will never make any of the conventional admissions of the triumph of Time. "I am far too old for birthdays, he says. He refused even to. have his breakfast in bed, as a birthday treat. He rose and took his bath at 7.30, as he always does, and after breakfast strolled for a time in his grounds. Every day, except Sunday, he goes for a long drive in one of his two motor-cars. In June this year Sir Benjamin tried flying. He went up in a large passenger-carrying machine at a display at Lincoln. He was disappointed. "Not nearly thrilling enough" he complained. One might have thought that he had had his fill of thrills more than half a century ago, when he saw some pretty fierce service in the Afghan War, and later in the Sudan. He lost an arm. Among the first to- congratulate him on his birthday was FieldMarshal Sir William Birdwood, who is one of his sons-in-law. Sir Benjamin has one son and three daughters, five grandsons and five granddaughters, and nine greatgrandchildren.