RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29325, 3 October 1960, Page 20

RANDOM REMINDER

CONVERSATION PIECES

Some New Zealanders spend a considerable portion of their working fives at conferences. This permits them to see the country, and for their wives to see it too. No doubt the exchange of ideas is valuable, and so, too, is the renewing of friendships. But it seems that patterns of behaviour are similar, no matter what the callings of those in conference, for all of them the morning and afternoon tea breaks provide opportunities for polite and inconsequential conversation.

There was a Synod at Auckland a few years ago where, at the morning tea break, a small and somewhat Dickensian bishop came up to a group of laymen and engaged them in conversation for a few minutes. As he spoke, he excused himself and reached across the table to a plate carrying some jam tarts—round little things, with a blob of cream in the geometric centre of each. A moment later he had a second one. Then he moved on to speak to another group of people. Idly, the first men watched

his progress. They were startled to find that at this stop he again ate two of the jam tarts. So it went on. The bishop moved to a third knot of people, spoke to them, ate two jam tarts, and went on. In all, he had five snatches of conversation and 10 jam tarts. The resumption of business cut short what might have become an interesting and significent piece of research. But it is unlikely that a wearer of the cloth would find himself out of conversation before all the jam tarts had gone.