COCOS GOLD

New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 769, 15 April 1954, Page 16

COCOS GOLD

) N the early twenties of last century ) a British ship named Mary Dear | sailed from the South American port of | Calao. On board were high dignitaries /of the Church and city of Lima, capital ‘of Peru. In the holds was some £ 20,000,000 in treasure, removed from | the’ city to prevent it falling into the |hands of the liberator, Simon Boliver. | When the Mary Dear was well at sea events took an unexpected, but for | those days not uncommon, turn The of Spain’s Most Catho|ic Ma esty were dumped overboard, and the ship headed for Cocos, a tiny island |lying off the north-west coast of South |America (not to be confused with the Indian Ocean Cocos). There the treasure 'was cached until the time was more | opportune for its removal and sale, and there, so far as is known, it still re- | mains.

Many attempts have been made to find the hidden treasure, Men have dug and searched and blasted, but never with any success. Britain’s famed speedster, Sir Malcolm Campbell, once dug for weeks in the island’s steaming heat, but he, too, met with failure. A dramatised story of the Cocos gold and of the men who dug, and sometimes died, in quest of it, is to be broadcast soon from National Stations. Written by C. Gordon Glover, the feature is entitled Pacific Gold. It begins with some full-blooded buccaneering ballads; for which, in the NZBS production, music was composed by Alex Lindsay. The singers are Henry Rudolph’s Capital Quartet. The show was produced by William Austin at the Wellington studios of the NZBS. Norman Griffiths is narrator. Pacific Gold will be broadcast first by 1XN at 9.30 p.m. on Wednesday, April 21. It will be heard in later weeks from other National stations.