Woman Has Been County Clerk For 29 Years

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30477, 26 June 1964, Page 2

Woman Has Been County Clerk For 29 Years

The only woman county clerk in the South Island, and one of the few in New Zealand. Mrs R. M. Ballintine, of Halswell, has seen many changes in the county since she became county clerk there 29 years ago.

When she began, the county office was one room attached to the council house. “As the staff grew, we were falling over each other —it was scarcely ant* bigger than this one office, she said yesterday, referring to her own compact but comfortable private office in the new county offices completed two years ago.

Mrs Ballintine does share her office to a certain extent, however: her constant companion is a friendly, longhaired, miniature dachshund, called Rudolph. Rich redbrown from the tip of his nose (which earned him his name), to his feathery tail, eight-month-old Rudolph was oblivious of winter’s chills yesterday afternoon. He lay basking in front of the office heater. - Mrs Ballintine's first experience of council work came when she entered the office of the Sumner Borough Council, after leaving school. Then, 86 years ago, she accepted the offer of a job as assistant county clerk at Halswell. Seven years later she was appointed to her present position.

“Little did I dream that I would be here all .this time, when I first came to Baisweil,” she said. She and her husband now live there. The volume of work for the council has increased steadily, with the increasing urbanisation of the area.

“Once it was practically all rural,” she said. With subdivision, the provision of amenities was necessary, and all this increased the council’s volume of work. No Monotony The scope and variety of the work ensures that it never

becomes monotonous. There is regular correspondence and inquiries to be dealt with, council and committee meetings to be attended (where Mrs Ballintine keeps the minutes of proceedings) and ratings to be worked out, under the direction of the council. “I am often asked if I have hobbies—well, I haven’t really,” Mrs Ballintine said. “I have made my work my hobby.”

For though rates and ratings are necessarily an important part of a council’s functioning, Halswell residents are people, not just

■ rate-payers, to their county ’clerk. “It has always been my policy to take people's complaints personally, and see that something is done about them.” she said. She has also learned the value of tact and diplomacy over the years. “I take out , what I’m going to say and look at it before I say it,” she 1 smiled.