THIRTEEN-year-old Nowra Hill schoolboy, Ted Agar had a lesson on May 26, 1893 in which he was required to write a letter, in this case to a cousin.

He received 35 points out of a possible 40 for his letter.

"The railway from Kiama to Bomedarry is to be opened next Friday," the lad wrote.

"I expect it will be a great benefit to the district; I also expect it will be a great day in Nowra."

He also commented on having had a holiday from school for Queen Victoria's Birthday (later to be known as Empire Day) which he spent getting in wood.

Ted Agar was born in Western Samoa; he was a few months old when his father died, and was orphaned at nine years.

However he returned to the Shoalhaven where the Agars had previously lived, became a dairyfarmer at Far Meadow and spent 60 years in that role.

He served as an alderman of Berry Municipal Council, and was active in many aspects of community life, from the Berry Show to the P. and C. and the Methodist Church.

* Thanks to Athol Agar of Berry, for making available a copy of this letter written by his father.

FIRST APPRENTICE WENT FAR

WILLIAM Edward Agar had the distinction of being one of the first apprentices employed by the Shoalhaven News.

The paper had been established at Terara in 1867, and it would have been in its very early days that the teenager joined the staff.

He had been born in the English county of Essex, and at a young age migrated to Australia with his parents.

Agar's main task at the News was hand-setting type, for this was more than 20 years before the Linotype was developed.

However he learned from his boss, Charles Isaac Watson, that the successful newspaperman of the era developed writing skills as well as knowing the technical side.

Shortly after completing his apprenticeship, he was married to Lizzie Jeston, daughter of the well-known Jervis Bay school teacher who also filled the position of Numbaa council clerk.

William Agar and his bride left for Fiji where he had secured a position on the typographical staff of The Times.

However at the start of 1877 he decided to establish the Samoa Times that was based in Apia.

His son Edward Jeston was born early in 1880, but unfortunately William suffered indifferent health.

He decided on a change of climate, returning firstly to Fiji, and then moving to Auckland (New Zealand).

Eventually returning to Apia in September 1880, he died the following month at the age of 29 years.

Something of his life was told in the obituary that appeared in the newspaper he founded:

"It was no light task that Mr Agar attempted when he took upon himself to establish a journal in this remote community, where there are so many conflicting interests, and where one has to walk warily if he would avoid offending national or other susceptibilities, and that the Samoa Times still exists is, we think, a monument to the tact and judgment of him whom we pen these lines."

William would have been delighted that one of his descendants followed his footsteps into the newspaper industry.

A grandson, Ivan Agar worked with the South Coast Register when it was at Berry, and he went on to be a Linotype operator at Halstead Press.

He pursued another communications interest for many years, being one of Australia's leading amateur radio operators.