RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29719, 12 January 1962, Page 14

RANDOM REMINDER

MY, FAIR LADY

Before very long, the workaday world will be resuming its ordinary shape, as the main draft of holiday-makers reports back to base and starts swapping those extravagant stories of sun-tan, flounders and flappers. But there will be one small section of the community which will be speaking in whispers, and will be glancing coverty, one at the other, fearful-eyed and wondering. The dustmen of Christchurch may be facing a crisis. The Doolittles will be sharp with their wives, downright rude to their children. For they are worried. They will complain, on com-

ing home, that it’s Chicken Royale again and tell their Elizas tersely to spend a little less time on Debussy and more on getting the eyes out of the spuds. Why are these normally gentle, easy-going men in such a nervous state? It is because one of them has let the team down; a mistake which may cost them all It happened in a southern suburb on Christmas Eve, when the last collection of refuse was being made before the start of the holidays. A woman of mature years, but one who was certainly not of sufficient age to interest boy scouts eager to interfere with the normal plea-

sures of ordinary people, such as crossing the street, observed her usual custom of leaving out a couple of bottles of beer, in a paper bag, for the over-worked and underpaid refuse collectors. She put her little offering down beside her bin just as the truck drew up alongside it. It was then that the solecism was committed, One which has brought to an end the beautiful relationship between this woman and the men of litters, and one which may, on publication, have a similar effect over the entire city. The man leaned out of the truck. grinned cheerily and said: "Thanks a lot, grandma.”