NATIONAL PARTY IN ST. ALBANS

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29240, 25 June 1960, Page 12

NATIONAL PARTY IN ST. ALBANS

Another Nominee For Selection

A young St. Albans businessman, Mr Roland Henry * Hammond, has joined the list of nominees for selection as National Party candidate for St. Albans at the General Election this year. Mr Hammond is the eighth prospective candidate who has announced that his nomination will be submitted. Nominations will close next Tuesday. Mr Hammond was born in Christchurch in 1925 and educated at the Fendalton School and Christ’s College. He joined the Royal New Zealand Air Force straight from school and served to the end of the war. Later he served for three years in the Territorial Force with the First Armoured Car Regiment.

Married, with four children, two boys and two girls, he lives in St. Albans and has his art gift retail business in the electorate. His close connexion with the district and a belief that younger men are needed in Parliament are among the reasons which prompted his decision to accept nomination.

Last year. Mr Hammond was chairman of the Christchurch Round Table movement, a group of young businessmen with community service as its aim. The list of names facing the electorate committee when it meets to make its selection on July 20 will be the longest for a local National Party committee for a long time. The selection of a candidate for Lyttelton, the other “marginal” Christchurch seat, will be made by the party on Monday evening, when there will be four nominees.

With that and St. Albans decided interest in selection will wane, although the party will still have to find candidates for the Labour strongholds of Christchurch Central. Svdenham. and Avon, and for Riccarton. where the sitting Labour member had the comfortably bis majority of 2867 three years ago