1965 Retrospect A BUSY YEAR IN WHICH CHRISTCHURCH LOOKED UP

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30948, 3 January 1966, Page 8

1965 Retrospect A BUSY YEAR IN WHICH CHRISTCHURCH LOOKED UP

The blue and white balloon began its flight from the Showgrounds on November 7 by bumping over brush hurdles. Then >t soared over' the city and the sight was one of the unusual events in the Christchurch year. But “mad! Ziy peoplejook up. and that was a feature of many oceasmns and achievements of 1965. . by oX S%“d?he S zS onTtor™ X Sugarloaf the 400 ft television Xst !rew and viewers watched the first programmes transnutted from it on September 28. Christchurch followed the lead of Wellington and Auckland into the £ Snw and throughout the centre of the city tall ofhce fcks were chXtag the skyline, rising in some cases with astonishing rapidity.

Plans were unveiled for several more high buildings. The North Canterbury Hospital Board built a 180 ft chimney for its new boiler house and could claim the highest concrete structure in the city. The Moorhouse avenue flyover opened to traffic on August 7. By no means all the changes in Christchurch happened up in the air, nor were all the big achievements restricted to the building industry, although many more such changes were presaged in 1965. The Town Hall design competition was opened to New Zealand architects: the last stages of the building plans for the University at Ham were approved; so were extensions of the airport terminal building.

Reshaping The Square The Christchurch City Council approved a design to refurbish CatHedral square. Education authorities settled on the building of a new teachers’ college at Ham. To inspect the city’s master transport scheme. Professor Colin Buchanan, a British townplanning expert, was invited to visit Christchurch. A Hereford street site was chosen for a big postal centre. Three major suburban shopping centres —at New Brighton, Riccarton and Bishopdale—were completed and they demonstrated the growth of activity beyond the city centre.

A new organisation, the Civic Trust, was founded to fuse the interests and energies of people who felt the development of the city needed some additional supervision and guidance—somewhat to the dismay of councillors who were getting on with the job, but the trust promised to be of ultimate benefit to all. The City Council turned down the draft of a bill to establish a regional authority to combine control over several local authorities. Other councils said they were still interested, but the authorities likely to lose their separate status were not enthusiastic. Everyone continued to dig up the roads more or less at will but a Christchurch man invented an ingenious machine, converting a rotary hoe to do it neatly.

Arts Festival Christchurch’s most distinctive event was undoubtedly its festival of the arts in February, opened by Sir Malcolm Sargent. The festival confounded the cynics, drew large crowds to concerts and exhibitions and made a profit of £179. On March 6, 290 aged but admired cars from many

countries set out on a tour of the South Island and returned, to be admired again at a vintage motor show. The choir of the Christchurch Harmonic Society went to the Commonwealth Arts Festival in London in September and later sang in the United States. Christchurch saw the prospect of another major event in the city when, in August, the New Zealand Olympic and British Empire Games Association decided the city might be nominated as host for the 1970 Commonwealth Games.

Bumper Farming Further afield, the province of Canterbury had a bumper farming year. Winter seemed to arrive early with a fierce storm at the end of April and the spring seemed to come late. But it was a bountiful year. This season’s crops should be among the best; last season’s wool prices slumped—the Dominion earned £3l million less from wool —but sheep grew more wool and this made up in part for modest prices. The lamb market opened last season at the highest rates since 1957 and this year’s prices were also good for farmers. Canterbury was fortunate with its weather. Other provinces suffered from flooding. Floods hit Bay of Plenty in February and parts of Taranaki in November. During August, heavy rain in Auckland caused slips which carried away or crushed several houses. Rain in New Zealand, however, was nothing like that experienced in the British Solomon Islands where, over East Talise, 108 inches fell in 10 days of July and floods left 1700 people homeless. Nor was our summer heat anything like that in February at Marble Bar, 1350 miles north of Perth. There, the temperature was above 100 degrees Fahrenheit every day.

Benmore Power The North Island first used power transmitted from Benmore through the Cook Strait cables on February 1. The regular commercial service began in April. At the other end of the island, the Waimea Power Board’s switches for street lights and waterheaters were upset by the frequency of the Benmore power converter, so, until adjustments were made, the supply from Benmore had to be shut down for 15 minutes morning and evening while the Waimea people got things under control.

The transmission of power was the conclusion of a great engineering feat, and others were under way. Below Benmore, the Waitaki river was turned, on August 1, into a diversion tunnel to permit the building of Aviemore dam for the third power station on the river. More were being planned. Many difficulties beset the construction of the Manapouri power scheme but this huge project was pushed ahead. Prince Bertil of Sweden came for the formal opening ceremony at Benmore.

Visitors From Abroad Other notable visitors to New Zealand during the year were the Archbishop of Canterbury in March; Mr Henry Cabot Lodge, personal envoy of President Johnson, who came to talk about Vietnam and had his car kicked at Wellington Airport; three British Cabinet Ministers, Mr Arthur Bottomley (Commonwealth Relations), Mr Fred Peart (Agriculture), who said the entry of Britain to the Common Market was a dead duck—but his colleagues at home said it wasn’t—and Mr Roy Jenkins (Aviation); and Dr. William Pickering, New Zealand-born director of the jet propulsion laboratory at Pasedena for the American space programme. He came to the eleventh New Zealand Science Congress at Auckland in February. Kenneth Joseph Bernard Dalbray Mcßride, alias Duki Du-Bray, an enterprising but otherwise indefinable young man, came and went. Miss Rice-Davies did not come after all. Biggest headlines, however, went to the arrival of five New Zealanders, Samuel, Deborah, Lisa, Selina and Shiriene Lawson, born on July 27 to Mrs S. W. Lawson of Auckland. Multiple births resulting from the use of a fertility drug were a sidelight to discussion of the world’s population which scientists agreed in February was increasing at the rate of 65 million a year and had reached an estimated 3283 million. New Faces

The year saw several changes among men at the top. Mr Kirk succeeded Mr Nordmeyer as leader of the Parliamentary Labour Party. Mr C. A. McFarlane, a former Director-General of the Post Office, became the second chairman of the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation after Dr. F. J. Llewellyn, the

first chairman, retired on March 31. Dr. Llewellyn also announced that he would be leaving New Zealand to take up his appointment as ViceChancellor of Exeter University. Professor A. J. Danks was appointed to succeed Dr. Llewellyn as chairman of the University Grants Committee. Then Dr. L. L. Pownall, vicechancellor of the University of Canterbury, was appointed to a senior administrative job in the University of London, so Dr. Llewellyn's old job at Canterbury will be vacant again. The Solicitor-General. Mr H. R. C. Wild, was named as the successor to the present Chief Justice. Dr. W. B. Sutch accepted an invitation to retire from his office as Secretary of Industries and Commerce.

Prisoners, In, Out Prisons and prisoners made news. For three hours on February 4 three escapers from Mount Eden PrisonGillies, Wilder and Evansheld a woman and her son hostage in their Horeka avenue house. The escapers surrendered to armed police. Two prison riots in July, at Mount Eden and at Paparua, stirred interest in the whole prison system and brought promises of swifter action to solve its problems. The theft in January of a bag belonging to an American visitor in Christchurch. Mr William Austin Booth, led to one of the heartening stories of the year. The bag held £320. A 12-year-old girl found It near a telephone box, took it to the police and, when Mr Booth returned to Christchurch, was rewarded with a £4O shopping spree accompanied by Mr Booth and a detective.

Navy’s Troubles The frigate, Waikato, was launched at Belfast on February 18, but the year ended badly for the Royal New Zealand Navy. The cruiser, Royalist, broke down at sea on November 1 after seven months on the Far East Station. Checks at Singapore revealed that the frigate, Whitby, which the Admiralty was arranging to lend to New Zealand, would take months to get into working order and the plan was declined with the hope that some more serviceable ship might be found. The Air Force received its Hercules transport aircraft and one of their first tasks was to carry an artillery battery to Vietnam in July. The Vietnam debate, sometimes impassioned, sometimes ill-in-formed, nevertheless reached greater intensity and commanded wider interest than any issue in foreign affairs in recent years. In Parliament, in the universities, in public squares and halls, in radio broadcasts and newspaper columns, among churchmen, returned servicemen and women’s organisations the argument went on. The Government prefaced the announcement of its decision to send troops with a £lo,ooogift for the relief of refugees in South Vietnam.

Progress On Roads Written examinations for drivers were begun in February. By the end of the year, New Zealand had better roads, more cars on them, the highest number of road deaths for any year and probably the worst accident rate in the world. The new motorway north of Christchurch took shape and the Haast road was opened on November 6. The Government gave its blessing to a new industry in March—the iron and steej works with a capital of £17.5 million. In January, the Pcrano family declared the end of whaling, New Zealand's oldest industry. By establishing a 12-mile limit around the coast, the Government took another step to protect and improve the Dominion's catch of small fish. The New Brighton pier, begun in 1891 and opened in 1894, was demolished in a few hours on October 12.

Two Conferences The Dominion was host to two international conferences the E.C.A.F.E. annual meeting in March, and the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association conference in November. The E.C.A.F.E. meeting concluded that development in Asia over the last four years had fallen far short of the minimum targets. The second produced spirited debates on Rhodesia and Vietnam. New Zealand cricketers and Rugby League players toured abroad without conspicuous success. In 15 hours and 33 minutes, on August 7, Keith Hancox became the first New Zealander to swim the English Channel. The Springbok tour was a triumph for the All Blacks, but it may have been the last tour by South African Rugby players in New Zealand after 44 years of exchanging visits. It was certainly a busy year and, though a catalogue of unfortunate events in 1965 would be long, the big news in New Zealand was, on the whole, good news.