Reporter’s Diary

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33929, 23 August 1975, Page 3

Reporter’s Diary

Deans’ houses THE “PLAQUE” referred to ' in the Waimairi County Council’s discussion on Thursday about the historic importance of the threequarter acre block which the Riccarton Bush Trustees want to buy, is not a plaque but a large standing stone. It now stands in Kahu Road. It is not on the block of land in question, and Mr G. M. Miller, who helped the late John Deans write “Pioneers of Port Cooper Plains,” says it refers to a slab hut put up by the Deans brothers as a very temporary residence. A year later they put up the house which now stands behind Riccarton House, and that one did stand originally on the block of land which the trustees want to buy. A pergola still marks the site. Last day CHARLIE STAFFORD’S footwear shop at the top of Colombo Street in the Edgeware shopping area closed yesterday after about 50 years of selling shoes to St Albans people. It was •started in the 1920 s by the i Woodard family, and was’ ! owned by a Mr Jones before , Mr Stafford bought it 28 . years ago. Now he has sold • the building to a developer who plans to knock down 1 all the shops in the corner ;block early next year and “redevelop” the block. Blair Coterie ; TODAY is' the 100th 'anniversary of the berthing of one of the early immigrant ships, the 1550 i tons Shaw Saville sailing ■ ship Blair Gowrie, at ! Lyttelton. She arrived a day earlier, on August 22, 1875, ■ after an 87-day passage from

London, but strong southwest winds and the approach of darkness caused her master, Captain Darke, to anchor overnight in Camp Bay. It was the ship’s maiden voyage, and she carried 430 Government immigrants — most of whom were single Irish girls, almost certainly a welcome commodity on the local marriage market. The Blair Gowrie had a brief career, disappearing on the return voyage around the Horn. Mr Ross Bassett, grandson of one of the 11 saloon passengers, has perhaps the only remaining relic — a large oil painting of the ship which his grandfather bought from the master. It used to hang in the saloon. Mr Richard , Sheehan, of Totara Street, Riccarton, is the son of another passenger who fell overboard during the voyage and was fortunate enough to be thrown a lifebuov. He had all the ! family’s wealth in his money , belt ’ — three sovereigns. 'Another first-generation ■ descendant is Mr George i Lysaght of Ashburton. ‘ Some record t ONE of the defendants 1 appearing in the Magis--1 trate’s Court this week ' has a medical record to go 1 with his criminal one. He ' was once admitted to I Christchurch Hospital with a blood-alcohol level of 664 milligrams per 100 millilitres, one of the highest levels ever recorded. Eighteen hours , later the level was still ’ 500 — five times as high I as the permissible level , for driving a car. Appar- ’ ently they thought at ; first sight that he was ; dead, but he was just selfi embalmed.

Air noise THE CLEAN Air Society is waiting for a reply from the Christchurch Glider Club to its complaint about noise at the week-ends. It is not the club’s gliders that are complained of — they are completely silent — it’s the aircraft that tow them aloft. “Noise increasing from passing traffic has made the levels from aircraft more annoying when one hopes for quiet,” says Mrs Janet Holm in the Environment Centre’s newsletter. “In Auckland a case has been won against gliders and some restrictions have been placed on their hours.” Spend to save HAROLD WILSON’S big public relations campaign to persuade Britons to pull in their belts another notch or two will cost them £2 million ($3,968,000). M. travel A PASSENGER on N. daybreak flight to Wellington one day last week was surprised to find that no-one was put off the aircraft to make room for a Christchurch M.P. who was waiting on the step for a seat. When the aircraft filled up, he went back to the terminal building. But N.A.C. says M.P.s do not get any preferential treatment, except for Ministers of the Crown, for whom two seats are always saved on certain trunk route flights until 24 hours before departure. Ail M.P.s do get free travel, however, paid for by the Legislative Department and booked through that department’s own travel office. In the case -of the M.P. seen waiting for a seat, N.A.C. says he must have needed to travel unexpectedly and had gone out on the off-chance that a seat would be available.