Pump Man Shows His Wares

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31836, 14 November 1968, Page 14

Pump Man Shows His Wares

A visiting British pump manufacturer (Mr M. V. Quartly) astounded casual drinkers in the lounge bar of the White Heron Hotel last evening by hitching an 81b electric pump to his bottle of tonic water.

He then nonchalantly pumped the tonic water into his gin glass before goggleeyed customers. Mr Quartly’s pump is so accurate he was able to pump in tonic waiter requirements to the exact drop. The motor powering the pump is oneninetieth of a horsepower. The lives of people sometime depended upon the accuracy of the pumps made by his firm, Metering Pumps, Ltd, Mr Quartly said. They were used for pumping in medicines, chemical dosing and for putting in ad-

ditives. In soap manufacturing his pumps injected perfume into soap and pumped colour into soap flakes. Mr Quartly is a member of a trade mission from the British Pump Manufacturers’ Association that arrived in Christchurch last evening. The leader of the mission, Mr M. Riggs, of Glrdleston Pumps, Ltd, said that the mission was primarily a technical one to bring New Zealand up to date on the advances and developments in British engineering. The products range from plastic pumps, selling from $3, to pumps used in nuclear power stations costing $250,000 and standing more than 100 ft.

Mr Riggs’s firm supplies 75 per cent of the pumps used for pumping whisky in Scottish distilleries and the firm has already supplied the pumps for use in the new distilling industry to begin in Dunedin.

The mission secretary (Mr R. Saunders) said that members could supply pumps for any purpose. “We can make pumps in gold, cast-iron or plastic if you want them,” he said. Britain was exporting 60 per cent of its total production of pumps worth more than $lOO million a year.

Life Member.—Mrs B. K. Davie, a former chairman and secretary of the CanterburyWestland branch of the Government Superannuitants’ Association of New Zealand has been made an honorary life member.