Measure For Measure
Apart from having to deal with the ratepaying public, local authorities also deal with contractors and sub-con-traetors and, at times the meetings can be tempestuous while at others, amusing. Mr J. B. Newton, the Christchurch Drainage Board maintenance officer, joined the board in 1928 and has collected a fund of true-life stories over the last 40 years, but the one he likes best concerns an irate drainlayer. This drainlayer complained that he had been given a wrong junction measurement, although when a member of the board’s staff checked it there was no doubt that the measurement was correct. The drainlayer was asked for his measuring tape so that it could be checked because measuring tapes do become stretched after a lot of 11CA
"The drainlayer replied that he did not have a tape, but bad used a long handle shovel to measure the junction,” said Mr Newton. “As the distance he measured was more than 200 ft and the length of the shovel only approximately sft, it left a big margin for error!”
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Bibliographic details
Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32032, 5 July 1969, Page 19
Word Count
176Measure For Measure Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32032, 5 July 1969, Page 19
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