Reporter’s Diary

Press, 8 December 1976, Page 2

Reporter’s Diary

Expert witness TRUST a lawyer to make sure he has an expert witness who is prepared to back him up in a tight comer. A Christchurch solicitor was driving to work along Park Terrace yesterday morning, and was half-way across the T-intersection at Kilmore Street when he saw a red traffic signal. He blinked, looked again, and found that both the red and the green lights were showing; only the amber was unlit. That is the sort of explanation that meets with a stony silence in court, but he is sticking to it. His passenger has an identical explanation — and he is Mr Des Hogan, regional secretary of the Ministry of Transport. Mr Hogan, who had accepted the offer of a lift to work, says it is the first time he has seen the red and green lights showing together on the same standard. He arranged for the maintenance people to put it right. Labouring on OLD HANDS in the Parliamentary Press Gallery say that Martin Nestor, who worked in the Prime Minister’s Department in the 19405, was not exaggerating when he described the Labour Prime

Ministers, Peter Fraser and Walter Nash, as being inconsiderate to their staff. One recalled that when Sid Holland became Prime Minister in 1949 in Fraser’s wake, the private secretary was allowed to have his Christmas dinner at home for the first time for years. “No-one works Christmas Day,” said the new boss. Peter Fraser had always made him spend Christmas in the office, in case a Christmas greetings telegram arrived which could be acknowledged by a reply. He was the only man there, and his Christmas dinner was a cup of office tea. Professor Keith Sinclair records a similar example of insensitivity in his book about Sir Walter Nash. Nash telephoned an official at home and asked him to come to his office. The man said he was down with a severe bout of flu. Nash told him not to worry — he wouldn’t catch it. Name restored FOR 32 YEARS the family of a Yorkshire man, Andrew Stuart, lived with the official theory that he died a drunken thief. Mr Stuart’s body was found close to a crashed stolen van in York early on Good Friday, 1944, and the police and an inquest

jury assumed that he bad been the driver. Now, according to “The Times”, Herbert Stratton, of Acomb, Yorkshire, has confessed that he stole the van, and accidentally knocked down Mr Stuart. In a statement to the head of Yorkshire C.1.D., Mr Stratton said that he had been drinking when he stole the van. and when he saw Mr Stuart he swerved towards him "to give him a scare.” The van struck M r Stuart, a an aircraft worker, and he died of a fractured skull. “The Times” quotes Mr Stratton as saying: “As 1 told the police, 1 can no longer live with my secret. It has tortured me for more than 30 years. I could not even tell my wife and five children.” On hearing of Mr Stratton’s confession, the dead man's eldest daughter, Mrs Margaret James, now 56, said: “It is such a long time ago that I don’t feel any bitterness towards the man who did it. If anyting, I feel sorry for him. I have no wish to see him punished.” The police say they will reopen investigations. Novel idea REGULAR readers of “Islands,” the quarterly New Zealand magazine of “arts and letters,” will find little variety in the November issue. The entire magazine is taken up with a first novel by the poet lan Wedde, called "Dick Seddon’s Great Dive.” The

New Zealand Literary Fund gave “Islands” a grant to help publication, and a hard-bound edition has also been printed for those who like their books not to look like quarterly magazines. The cover was designed by the painter, Ralph Hotere. Celebrity birds TWO VISITORS from the Soviet Union may receive celebrity treatment under a British-Soviet pact on the environment. They are Bewick's swan and the Brent goose. migratory birds which breed in the Soviet Arctic and winter in Britain, A joint .five-day symposium in London has decided on greater environmental protection for the birds, which may get top security under a convention between the two countries. A five-year British-Soviet environmental pact signed in May, 1974 has led to exchanges on air pollution, urban transport and ways of revitalising old towns. The two delegations agreed to do further work next year on urban transport, problems of new towns, and land reclamation. The Soviet Union has suggested joint action to prevent oil spillage and pollution from ships. The first cubs PRIDE of place in “Our Adventure,” the history of the Merivale Scout Group, is given not to the scouts, but to the wolf cubs. And rightly, so, because it was

in Merivale that the world-wide wolf cub movement began. It was the idea of Colonel D. Cosgrove, founder of the Boy Scout Movement in New Zealand. He authorised the formation in Merivale of an experimental patrol for younger boys, to be called the Bull Pup Patrol. The first patrol was formed in May, 1918, and a second — called the Wolf Cub Patrol — a month later. The new movement proved so successful that Colonel Cosgrove put the idea up to the founder of the scouts, Lord Baden-Powell, and he got the cubs going in Britain. An epilogue to the official history points to some changes coming up for both cubs and scouts. Cubs will abandon their traditional green uniforms and wear the same uniforms as scouts — but that uniform is to change too. Instead of the old khaki, scouts and cubs will be decked out in teal blue and fawn. Soup opera 8080 Faulkner, the Australian model who endorses a deodorant on television, is in Christchurch today and tomorrow to do something similar for a new brand of soup to be launched by T. J. Edmonds, Ltd, the baking powder people. She has been flown over to appear in television commercials which will be screened in New Zealand later in the year. —Garry Arthur