General News

Press, Volume XCIV, Issue 28154, 18 December 1956, Page 14

General News

Notice To Subscribers Subscribers to “The Press’’ who intend to be away from their homes during the Christmas and New Year holidays are asked to notify “The Press” office immediately by ringing 69-799 for any alterations they require in the deliyery of their newspapers. Further information is advertised on page 24 today. Instructions about deliveries will not be received during the holiday period when the main office of “The Press” will be closed. Hillary as Godfather In a crowded day before the embarkation of the New Zealand Antarctic Expedition on the Endeavour at Lyttelton. Sir Edmund Hillary took an hour off yesterday afternoon to stand as godfather to the son of an old friend. He had long promised to do so for Mr W. P. Packard, a lecturer in geography at Canterbury University College, who went with Mr H. W. Tilman’s expedition to the Himalayas while he was a Rhodes Scholar, and later worked as an honorary helper in London for the British expedition which conquered Everest. Paul William Packard cried lustily throughout the service. “He will plainly make a mountaineer with those lungs,’’ said Sir Edmund Hillary. His own infant daughter, present with Lady Hillary, had not macle a murmur during the christening. “Trafficounter” Stolen

What would appear to be an unusually senseless theft occurred recently when a “trafficounter” was taken from the side of the Main South road. The counter, valued at £2BO, is the property of the Ministry of Works and there are only 16 of these counters in New Zealand. The box containing the mechanism was chained to a power pole but it was there only a day before the chain was broken and the counter stolen.

Duke’s Standard Tangled When the Duke of Edinburgh’s personal standard was broken at the after mast as he went aboard H.M.N.Z.S. Endeavour, the New Zealand Antarctic expedition’s supply ship, at Ljttelton yesterday, it became tangled in the rigging. After several attempts to free it by lowering and raising the halyard smartly several times a rating scrambled aloft by the catlines and cleared it by hand. AH Inquiries Answered “While I do not want to dispute the right of people writing letters to the newspapers, the pioper place to find out what the Returned Services’ Association is doing is at the association in Gloucester street, where the secretary and office staff will put them on the right lines,” said Mr D. Barrett at a meeting of the executive of the Christchurch Returned Services’ Association last evening. The association was discussing the publication ’in a newspaper of letters which had not been referred to the association for comment Hillary’s Christmas Present Lying at the foot of one of the power poles on the wharf as the Duke of Edinburgh went aboard H.M.N.Z.S. Endeavour at Lyttelton yesterday was a large, brown-paper wrapped parcel addressed, simply: “Sir Edmund Hillary. Antarctic expedition. Not to be opened until Christmas Day.” Theft From Refrigerator

A sum of about £l2O raised by the social club at Dominion Industries, Ltd., Riccarton, was put in a refrigerator on the firm’s premises for safe keeping over the week-end. When the refrigerator was opened yesterday morning, the money was not there. Detectives are making investigatic ns.