RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33654, 2 October 1974, Page 23

RANDOM REMINDER

ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS

Some people can travel the world and find the whole business ot getting from A to B ridiculously easy, riding smoothly over the hurdles of ticketing and timetables and language. Others regard a 10-minute car ride across town as a major undertaking. There is a Linwood family which, we might suggest, would provide the most experienced travel agent with a lasting headache. The lady and her husband has occasion to go to Wellington. They went by boat and planned to catch a rail unit at Wellington to go to Khandallah, some five miles away. Her mother and sister were already in residence there. These two decided to come into Wellington to meet the boat travellers. They set the alarm in their hostesses's

house for 6.15 a.m. They wound the clock. When it sounded its doleful lay, they were out and about. Mother and daughter had been sharing a divan bed — the house was full of guests. Mother, all diligence, made the room tidy. folding things, storing them away, packing the travel cases, and went off to the station. There they waited. There was no sign of life, no sound of it. Mother gave up and began to walk back. They checked their watches. Mother found hers had stopped. She had set it on station time. 6.30 a.m.. and could not wind it. The daughter’s watch had also stopped, through over winding. At 2.30. They returned to the house and had to waken an unimpressed uncle tn let them in so they could go back to bed for about three hours. When they

finally caught their train, uncle came with them, for reasons best known to himself. The boat was an hour late. But the railway unit was held up, and the three passengers of this story were unhappily convinced that the northbound pair would pass them on the way. And these two had net been without their moments. She had had trouble trying to sleep; their first crossing. She asked her husband the time. He said they were almost in Wellington. It was 2.30.

They all greeted each other, finally, as if they had come from the ends of the world to renew an association of a generation earlier. Alarm clocks are splendid aids, if properly used But they are not much value if they are four hours out when they ere wound and set.