ADVENTUROUS CAREER

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 452, 21 June 1937, Page 2

ADVENTUROUS CAREER

“MOTH” RETURNS TO LONDON Received By Duke Of Kent * . London, May 22. Of all the many Dominion visitors, in Ixmdon few ' have had a more adventurous I’fe than Charles Evendon, who left England more th-an thirty, years ago. Tired of selling newspapers he found a job as a cabin boy on a tramp ste mer; and, when this, didn’t satisfy his craving for adventure, took ship to Australia to try his fortunes there.

Twenty-five -years ago, Mr Evendon b-.gan. life in Victoria, cutting down blue gum trees. And, he says, “there isn’t anything like that sort of work fcr strengthening a young man’s character as well as his muscles

Ous puify man attacking a giant ot a tree —he feels like David triumphing over Goliath.” L~ter Mr. Evendon found himself penniless “on -the wallaby,” tramping and sleeping out. Then war broke out, and he went through Gallipoli and then back to Australia, where the farm he invested in cashed. So in 1922 he booked two passages to South Africa for himself and his wife. “It was just am impulse,” he said, “I had no idea whiat-1 was going to do there; but three days after a landed I got a job on a pape-r. And then they found that I could draw. So that was that.” Mr. Evendon’s drawing led to something else. Ten years, ago he did a cartoon for Armistice- Day. There was a tin hat in it, the symbol of the forgotten soldier. When Mr. Evendon had finished the drawing he sat and looked at it and an idea came into his mind. As he sat there the idea grew. The result of that idea to-day is the Memorable Order of Tin Tfats, a society of 30,000 ex-Service men who call themselves Moths. It was as the official representative of the Moths that Mr. Evendon came over for the Coronation. He was received by the Duke of Kent, to whom he presented greetings from the order he had founded.

“It’s strange,” said Mr. Evendon, “if it hadn’t been for -this, I don’t suppose I should ever have seen England again AJnd there are thousands of men like m 3 out in South Africa and Australia—men who went out as boys and have carved out their own lives. There’s an important railway man in South Africa who was once a porter at London Bridge. I promised him I’d bring back a photograph of the station, and to-day my wife took a snapshot of me sitting on a seat, underneath a boerd saying ‘London Byidgl.’

"London Bridge hasn’t changed, you know,” Mr Eventon added reflectively; “Nor has London. Somehow when you live abroad you carry an idea of the shape of London in your head—the wtey the streets go, and the House of Parliament and Piccadilly Circus—and even the new buildings don’t alter it.” And, after 100,000 miles of travel, Mr. Evendon has this opinion to give: “If you wanted the ideal city,” he tiaid, “you d have to take London and put it down in South Africa,, for the climate.”