MAJOR SKINNER

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 March 1943, Page 3

MAJOR SKINNER

CALL FROM SERVICE IN TRIPOLITANIA. TO NEW ZEALAND CABINET POST. (Special P.A. Correspondent.) LONDON, March 27. Men who are appointed to become Ministers in Cabinets receive notification in a number of ways, but probably few are more unusual than that of Major Skinner, M.C., M.P. for Motueka. On a clear sunny morning he was supervising the building of a road round a bridge which had been demolished on the Tarhuna-Castel Benito road, near Tripoli, when he received an order to report to Lieutenant-General Freyberg and that he was “to wear a tie.” Major Skinner —with tie —reported to General Freyberg and learnt that he had replaced Mr Langstone in the Cabinet, and was asked to go to England to give a series of speeches for the ]\linistry of Information on New Zealand’s war effort before returning to the Dominion.

Major Skinner flew to London in a Liberator bomber, the trip lasting nine days, though the actual flying time was only 21 hours as the plane became bogged and this delayed the take off. He arrived fit and well, his bronzed face ’ contrasting sharply with pallid Londoners. He is spending his first week-end with the New Zealand High Commissioner, Mr Jordan and expects to meet the British Minister of Information, Mr Brendan Bracken, on Tuesday. He will probably remain in Britain for several months.