A big hello to all the Primary 5 students at St. Ronan's Primary School in Bonhill.

To the students of P.5 and all the students of St Ronan's Primary School...a big hello (particularly to my little cousin Fiona!).

I am now in Wellington, the capital city of New Zealand, and I will venture on to the South Island on Wednesday. I have had a very exciting trip this year and I know you know that I have had some problems along the way.

That said, I am very grateful for the opportunity to meet so many interesting people and visit so many wonderful places!

This week I was in a primary school called Fraser Cresent School and also working with a secondary school called Tawa College. I have been telling all the students about you and about St Ronan's (and my other partner schools).

I head after New Zealand to the United States of America and later this year I will be home in Jamestown and I am looking forward to talking with you as a school then.

Feel free to e-mail me at any time and send me copies of your project work in order that I can share it with all the students.

Will

Before I go let me share a wonderful true story with you about Paddy the Wanderer.

Paddy was a ginger and brown Airedale (terrier) dog who became a well-known and much loved identity on the Wellington waterfront of the 1930's. His original name is believed to have been Dash and he was the favoured pet of a young girl called Elsie Marion Glasgow whose father was a seaman.

Elsie Marion and her mother Alice would often bring their dog to meet John Glasgow's ship when he was returning to port. In this way Dash soon became familiar with the wharves.

Tragically, Elsie Marion took ill and died of pneumonia in 1928 at the age of just three and a half years. Bewildered and lost Dash strayed from home and took to wandering the wharves in search of his lost playmate. He never returned home, deciding instead to remain at the waterfront.

Paddy (as he became known) was a familiar sight on the wharves in the 1930's and he began to feature regularly in newspaper articles. He was cared for by watersiders and Harbour Board workers, seamen and local taxi drivers; who all took it in turns to pay his annual dog licence fee.

The taxi drivers would often take him for rides around the city and sometimes up country. Paddy also made voyages to some of New Zealand's coastal ports and even to Australia.

Paddy was said to have good sea legs and a really keen nose for an impending storm.

In 1935 he made a flight in a Gipsy Moth biplane and enjoyed the experience of flying in the open cockpit. In the last few years of his life he was given the honorary title of Assistant Watchman keeping an eye out for smugglers and pirates as well as rodents.

Paddy became good friends with the nightwatchman; both being glad of each others company during the long, cold nights.

By the time Paddy was 13 he began to show signs of old age and he refused to travel far. He was now usually to be found on the Tally Clerk's stand inside the Queen's Wharf gates. Then when his health deteriorated he was placed in a sickbed in Shed 1 and attended by a vet, with people calling to see him and enquire about his health.

On July 17th 1939 Paddy died. Obituary notices were placed in the local newspapers to inform everyone of his death.

A fleet of black taxis, led by a traffic officer, formed a funeral cortege to carry his coffin from Queen's Wharf to the City Corporation Yards for cremation.

Funds were gathered by Paddy's old friends for a memorial drinking fountain and in 1945 the fountain was erected using stone from London's bombed Waterloo Bridge.

When the drinking bowl overflows with water it fills the two drinking bowls below so that Paddy can help any passing dog quench his thirst.

I was lucky enough to drink from Paddy's Fountain on the morning of Saturday March 10th 2007.