Tramway Revenue Officer Retires After 38 Years

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28435, 15 November 1957, Page 21

Tramway Revenue Officer Retires After 38 Years

A man who has balanced £8,393,000 worth of tickets against the cash received for them in the 38 years he has been with the Christchurch Transport Board, Mr C. W. Collins, of Shirley, retired from the board yesterday. Mr Collins, the board’s chief revenue clerk since 1933, was met by the staff yesterday afternoon, when, on behalf of his colleagues, Mr J. F. Fardell, the general manager, presented him with a golf bag and clubs, which Mr Collins will find useful at his home course of Waimairi. An insurance company employee before World War I, Mr Collins found on his return from overseas that there was no job for him, and he obtained first temporary employment, and then a full-time office position with the Christchurch Ti’amway Board. “They were not easy days, but we had a good team spirit and a lot of fun as well as a lot of hard work,’’ Mr Collins recollected yesterday, when he chatted with a reporter and Mr L. E. Smith, the board’s accountant, who began work with the board shortly after Mr Collins. Undoubtedly the most important change Mr Collins has seen in the office has been the introduction of accounting machines. Every day he has had to balance the cash takings by motormen and conductors, and in recent years bus drivers, against the tickets issued and returned. “Right to the penny,” he commented, “and the Audit Department has never found any fault.” When Mr Collins began his present duties, the balancing had to be done by hand. Many were the times the whole office staff was called back at night, and it did not matter whether they had made plans to go to the pictures or anywhere else. “And no overtime. not even tea money,” said Mr Collins.

His experience on the board covers the days of trams and buses, and on race days in the past, steam trams, but Mr Collins recalled that for many years “horse in harness” was carried in the balance sheet.

Busiest Week

He is leaving in the board’s busiest week of the year, with races, trots and show all in one week. But work for most is not so hard as it used to be. Mr Collins said that on show day in the 1930’s tram drivers and conductors used to work without a break, and there was a depot provided in the Square to give them a cup of tea and cakes. When he began work there were only eight major tram routes. Today. the board’s buses cover about one million more Tniles in a year, but they are carrying no more passengers. When Mr Collins first worked for the board there were only three cars owned in New Brighton, and the owners would not have dreamed of taking them to work. Even cycling to work in those days from as far away as

New Brighton was hazardous because of the roads. Practically everyone used the trams. As well as having a daily balance between tickets and cash, it has been Mr Collins’s duty every four weeks to balance as well the stock of tickets held, and with £360.000 worth of tickets in stock that has been a meticulous task. Mr Collins is leaving the board’s employ on reaching retiring age, but he is carrying on work in another job. “Because I wouldn’t know what to do with the time,” he said.