BLIND SOLDIER WORKS TELEPHONE EXCHANGE

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 371, 4 June 1928, Page 11

BLIND SOLDIER WORKS TELEPHONE EXCHANGE

UNERRING ACCURACY MAN OF MANY HOBBIES Fate in the form of a German broomstick bomb robbed a young Australian soldier, Vernon Muilin, of his sight at Mouquet Farm action nearly 12 years ago—but he has called her bluff. To-day Mr. Mullin is a skilled telephone exchange operator, an ardent stamp collector, a successful builder of wireless sets, and eten a keen gardener. “He never makes a mistake,” is a phrase linked with Mr. Mullin's name at the offices of the Repatriation Department, Melbourne, where he operates a telephone switchboard almost as large as that allotted to an attendant at the central exchange. Braille numerals are fitted on the board, but 10 years of practice at the department, following upon a course of instruction at St. Dunstan’s, England, has made him independent of this aid. He plugs in with unerring accuracy and remarkable speed. A retentive memory for numbers is another of his assets. Big Collection A year ago Mr. Mullin took up stamp collecting, and now has more than 12,000 stamps, 7,300 of which are of different varieties. He has a partiality for air mail stamps, and in a collection of 200 under this heading embraces air mail services all over the world. With Mrs. Mullin as assistant, he values the stamps, counting the perforations himself, and relying upon his wife’s assistance on the points of shades and watermarks. They put them in the albums together. The building of wireless sets has come within the range of his hobbies, too. He has made sets, from the crystal to the tour-valve. Mrs. Mullin assists by reading instructions at any intricate stage, and Mr. Muiulin does the assembling. And, in addition, Mr. Mullin supplies the household with vegetables and flowers from his own garden. With ; his work and his hobbies, this s’oung blinded soldier appears to be quite I happy.