RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30687, 1 March 1965, Page 24

RANDOM REMINDER

DRAMA BY NIGHT

Golf in Canterbury has produced some fine players and administrators, and if the hero of this story has tried his hand at both without outstanding success, we are able to say so only because we know him fairly well: he is certainly well enough known among the golfers of the province. But it was church work which started it all off. It was a Sunday evening and he was busy at the church counting out the offertory a task which took him a good two hours or more; it was that sort of church His wife, at home had said she would go to bed early and leave the back door open. But she too had her round of tasks before retiring, and she forgot about unlocking the back door.

Which was why her husband had to waken her by raising their bedroom window. But while he was thus engaged, a party of high-minded citizens, passing by, had come to the conclusion that the house was being burgled. This conviction was strengthened by the fact that the man was wearing dark slacks, a dark (golf) jersey, and a dark hat It might be kinder not to make direct reference to his personal appearance. At all events, the passersby were off in a flash to the nearest police station. Back in the building, the golfer and his wife were enjoying a cup of tea and a chat when the doorbell sounded. The man went to the door, and his wife, deciding only golf club business could explain so

late a call, retired with a philosophical shrug of her shoulders. But the tones in the conversation she heard persuaded her she might be needed; and it was only her re-appearance which persuaded the two policemen that their quarry was indeed telling the truth. Some will say that in itself was a change. The man and his wife, from a window, watched the police leave, and saw them in conversation with the passers-by, who had returned, no doubt in the expectation of a dramatic arrest. And they felt like calling out that they were all I just a year too late. For L it was the first anniversary of the occasion on which their house had been i genuinely and thoroughly burgled. ■