"Wilkie" Passes

Adventurous Life of Cook Is.

Trader

THE Cook Islands have lost another well-known character, in the death at Mangaia, on September 6, of Alfred George Wilkinson affectionately known throughout the Cook Group and further afield as “Wilkie”.

Into his 62 years of life, “Wilkie” crowded a wealth of romance and ad venture such as rarely falls to the lot of one man.

Son of a well-known Bristol family, he was a soldier and adventurer from

his earliest days, leaving home as a youth to fight in the Boer War.

Later, he wan dered on to New Zealand, where he sampled horse breaking and lumber - jacking, among other pur suits, until the lure of the Islands claimed him.

In the service first of Maxwells, of Tahiti, and later of A. B. Donald Ltd., he became a familiar figure on practically all the islands and atolls

of the Central and Eastern Pacific as trader, supercargo and pearler.

During the great hurricane of 1906 he was stationed on Rakahanga atoll (Northern Cooks) and is affectionately remembered by the natives for his brave efforts on their behalf during that terrible ordeal.

On the outbreak of hostilities in 1914, he immediately enlisted and served throughout the war, being wounded several times. Upon his discharge, he returned to the Islands and, after a long spell on Penrhyn, he finally settled in Mangaia.

In 1938, he left with his popular Tahitian wife on a round-the-world trip, to visit England, and they were bn their way back when war broke out.

“Wilkie” bitterly regretted that the powers-that-be considered him too old to “have another crack at ’em”.

Returning to the Cook Islands, he took over his former post of manager for A. B. Donald Ltd., in Mangaia. but he was in failing health and did not long survive his return.

During his latter years, “Wilkie” was a source of entertainment for the younger hands, with his rich fund of South Sea tales. He was a keen fisher man and loved a tussle with a shark.

From early boyhood until the end of his days, he was a remarkably skilful marks man with a rifl£> “Wilkie” was buried in Mangaia. Native returned soldiers served as pall-bearers

and formed a guard of honour.-

W.S.B.

Captain Roger Pocock, who had a career of extraordinary adventure, which included a term as a missionary in New Caledonia, died in London recently, aged 76. He founded the Legion of Frontiersmen in 1904.

Leading Aircraftsman Kenneth Lee, who was educated at Suva Boys’ Gram mar School, Fiji, received a commission, with the rank of Pilot Officer, in the NZ Air Force last month. He is only 19 years’ old.

Mr. A. G. Wilkinson.