As I Hear... Echoes From The Past

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32280, 24 April 1970, Page 24

As I Hear... Echoes From The Past

(By

J.H.E.S.)

They came to me redolent of the past and carrying echoes from the plains of windy Troy, these reports of organised agitation against the nipping off of a corner of Hagley Park and some monkey business with Latimer Square. On so many civic issues Christchurch had divided; I mean, issues related to amenities and art. One, the older half of the citizens, or fewer, will recall the protracted contest over the choice of a war memorial: here, those for a memorial bridge over the Avon; there, those for a symbolic piece of

bronze. If I am right, this contest was pursued, if with heat at all, with restrained heat; and in the pacific result, the city found itself with two memorials, But the solution generated another dispute: where was the bronze to be sited. Moreover, this dispute came to be involved in another, about a new lay-out for Cathedral Square. Not many will now recall the hideous tram-shelter, squat and ugly in green and ochre paint, in the middle of the Square, directly opposite the west frontage of the Cathedral. An underground lavatory

for men lay at the northern end. I am sorry to say that I do not remember whether, at the sourthern, a similar set of steps led to a covern for women: probably not, since I can recall protests from them against the want of similar provision for them, except at the coh of pennies. But however that may be, I do recall that one proposal, advanced by councillors and citizens who had -grand ideas, was that the tramway shelter and lavatory block should be constructed in marble and that the bronze should be mounted on top. This proposal came to nothing: and nothing, as all will now agree, was best, especially so because the bronze, first placed on a green and tree-planted plot behind the new tramshelter, was moved to the Cathedral grounds. ¥ ¥ ¥ My reference to this old wrangle about the layout of Cathedral Square, which went on and on, compels me to repeat a few lines contributed by Professor Arnold Wall to "The Press,” in comment on a cable from Helsinki. Somewhere in Finland an old lady had scored her 100, had been asked how she accounted for her long life. She said, simply, die had dieted on fresh herrings and strong coffee. A.W. wrote: Oh, bring me fresh herrings All salt from the sea. And pots of hot coSee, As strong as. can be; For I want to be there, Iwant to be there. me people's committee s fixed up the Square.