SEA-FEVER

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 316, 29 March 1928, Page 1

SEA-FEVER

Call too Strong for Christchurch Law Clerk “BOY” ABOARD AORANGI A boy who bears a distinguished New Zealand name, and was educated at a Christchurch college, is at present polishing brasswork aboard the Aorangi. A FTER leaving school he was placed in a solicitor’s office and began to study for a university degree. The vague unrest which stirred in the blood of the young sutdent finally drove him to the Union Steam Ship Company’s office, and there, by what he deems to be a remarkable stroke of good fortune, he obtained the post of junior “boy” on the Aorangi. There he is to-day—junior to boys of 15 and 16, but supremely happy. Even the intellectual companionship he naturally seeks is not denied him. In the forecastle are educated men, including several public school men, a graduate and an ex-schoolmaster, all of whom have been compelled to answer the siren call of the sea, leaving their earlier occupations behind them. It is a strange force—the call of the sea—heard by the most unlikely men in the most unlikely places ... and rarely is it unanswered. “When you hear it,” says the Christchurch “boy,” now going through the mill, “do not ignore it. The four yciars of hardship that a man experiences while serving his time are a trifle when the alternative is a life of vain regrets.”