THE LIFE-SAVER.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 91, 7 October 1911, Page 10

THE LIFE-SAVER.

An active and romantic career at sea, as an English coastguard, is on the evo of completion by the retirement from Beaehy Head o'f Chief Officer George Hogben. For many years Mr. Hogben was in the Navy, but the last 28 years he has spent at Bcachy Head, interspersing the peaceful duty of reporting passing ships with sensational salvage work. ■Many lives have been saved at this station.

At the coastguard station at Littlestone Mr. Hogben had one of his most exciting experiences in life-saving. "A lunatic, a. six-foot ex-Guardsman, had escaped," he said, "and had hidden himself in the wreck of a big schooner, the ribs of which were sticking up in the water. A heavy sea was breaking over her, and three men had already had a try to save him and failed.

"I swam out to him with a rope. As I approached the wreck he cried out, 'You've come to save me. Good-bye!' and jumped in the sea. "With a great effort I got the rope round his shoulders, and then a fierce battle took place in the water. The man wanted to drown, and wanted me to drown with him. Once as we struggled he got mv thumb in his mouth and bit it severely. At last we managed to get him ashore, but the strain and struggle had been too much for me. and I was ill for six weeks." The rescues of visitors and others who had fallen over a cliff at Bcachy Head, and lodged on a ledge, are 100 numerous to recall in detail. In August, 1008. a girl was seen on a ledge -100 ft down the cliff at Coney's Bottom. Mr. Hogben at once had himself lowered to her rescue. When be reached her she screamed and fainted, and for a moment it was a ticklish job holding the unconscious girl on the narrow ledge. Then he fastened the rope about her. took her in his arms, and signalled to be hauled up again, amid (he cheers of (he visitors who had gathered on the top.