RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31032, 12 April 1966, Page 26

RANDOM REMINDER

MILK, HUMAN KINDNESS

Somewhere in Christchurch there is a milkman who is having very hard things thought about him, and said about him. He operates in an indeterminate area of the city, known as Riccarton to some of the inhabitants, as Fendalton to the others there. Both lots are disturbed by him, for he must rank—they say—as about the noisiest milkman of all time. His arrival, they claim,- has all the brisk movement and musical range of a piece written by Wagner to go with a Wild West rodeo.

One of his critics is a woman whose gentleness and humour are widely known. She threatens to kill the man. Of recent date, the noise has been getting worse, possibly because daylight is coining later. The woman has a

light outside her gate, however, and this illuminates a macabre scene round about dawn. The other morning she was disturbed by a particularly violent clashing of gears, grinding of motor, crashing of bottles, and she thought sad thoughts about the little children who live next door to her. She woke her husband with the demand that he do something about it. He got out of bed and went to the observation post before retiring again with a half-promise that he would write to the Milk Board. And it was then

he dreamed his strange dream: not so strange that it might not, one day, be made real, and give the milkman the surprise of his life. It must have been the talk of a letter which started it off. For the man is

well aware of the facts of life, and realised in his sub-conscious that a letter would only bring one in return, and the start of a full correspondence, probably futile. So he planned, on his pillow, a sort of ambush. There was the milkman, clashing and crashing away. And all of a sudden the whole place was made bright as day by a searchlight (German prison camp style); a vast posse of angry neighbours encircling the villain; a candid camera recording his every word and movement; representatives of Milk Board, the Health Department, the police, the Child Welfare Division, the Mental Hygiene Division, and Civil Defence,, al] looking distinctly ugly, still. Oh, yes. That milkman had better watch his step. And those of all his customers.