RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31260, 5 January 1967, Page 16

RANDOM REMINDER

TRIAL BY ORDEAL

The New Zealander is reputed to be a versatile sort of creature, quick to respond to the needs of the strangest situations. Sometinies the test is a severe one. At Edinburgh University a Christchurch man was persuaded to join a Rugby team to play Aberdeen University. At home, he was an occasional hockey player, but he accepted, having made a careful mental note to take off his glasses first. When he discovered he was down to play in the front row, he resisted a strong temptation to wear ear muffs.

The gathering of the team for departure was strongly reminiscent of the assembly of the cricket team in A. G. Macdonnell’s “England, Their England.” People came, dropped baggage and dispersed again on the most inconsequential errands. But finally a quorum was established and the bus set off, very late. It therefore arrived late, and by the time the match was over the shades of night were falling fast Our hero, battered and bruised beyond belief, but still in one piece, went back to the bus. The others

were outside It. So was an ample proportion of the local population, and several representatives of the Scottish police force. It was stark drama. The footballers could not enter the bus, because inside it was a dog believed to be suffering from rabies, and therefore mentally disturbed. The problem was being approached with typical Caledonian caution. The New Zealander simply went inside, seized the dog, put a leash on it, and took it out It thereupon slipped the leash, and trotted away, tail cocked impudently; if it had any fail-

ings, rabies was not one of them. So off the bus-load went and after a while, the vehicle stopped. It was on fire. Everybody out The Kiwi, with the others, beat out the flames. They reached Edinburgh at 3 a.m., bed an hour later. But the New Zealander and bis wife had to be up betimes, for they had accepted an invitation to lunch. Their destination, they discovered, was a little place of several hundred acres, in which sat a sort of palace, in which scores of servants scurried about busily.

They were worn out, but they held their own. In Scotland, as in England, lunch lasts from about 12 to 4, and it was off, then, in the early evening to another function, at which the principal attraction was Scottish folk dancing. This is an engaging exercise, which appeals strongly to a good many folk; but it is brutally energetic, and rather noisy, and seems to go on for a considerable period. .. . Out of the blue, two things occurred. The dancing stopped and our hero, most unexpectedly, was called upon to deliver a speech. "Our young friend from New Zealand . . they said, kindly. That, had the fates been even reasonably just, would have been about enough. But hardly had he finished talking before there was a hearty slap on the back from a gentleman who looked rather as if he had retired from the armed services, with senior rank, about the time the Fuzzy-Wuziies were causing all that bother. And he had a friend in Christchurch, and did he not know old So-and-So. . . .