Reporter's Diary

Press, 3 May 1977, Page 2

Reporter's Diary

Name-spotters A NELSON reader was pleased to find that the speaker chosen for yesterday’s thanksgiving service organised by the Nelson Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child was Dr -H. A. Swadling. Another points out delightedly that the dermatologist quoted in Saturday’s article about baldness is Dr J. S. van Pelt.

‘lronside’ CAPPING DAY money collected today by university students will go towards the purchase of an “Ironside” for the Multiple Sclerosis Society. This is the nickname given to vehicles designed for transporting disabled persons in their wheelchairs. But the one wanted in Christchurch will not look anything like as sinister as the severe windowless van used by. Police Chief Ironside in the television series. It will be custombuilt to carry six people in wheelchairs, and will have plenty of windows. A hydraulic hoist will lift the occupied chairs in and out of the door at the back. The “Ironside” will cost about $15,000, but it will help solve the main problem of all disabled people — mobility. It will be used to carry multiple sclerosis sufferers — including more than 20 who are long-term residents of Burwood Hospital — to and from medical appointments, social gatherings and community events.

Cappinfl Charity Appeal The broken letters “MS” symbolising the nerve breaks which characterise multiple sclerosis, feature on this year’s University of Canterbury capping collection tags. Looking up NOTES for the stargazers’ diary: only two more eclipses of the Sun will be visible from New Zealand this century — a partial eclipse on February 4, 1981, and an annular eclipse on January 16, 1991. But there will be 20 more lunar eclipses, the next one on March 24 next year. Transits of Venus, however, are few and far between. This is where the planet passes directly between the Sun and the Earth and is visible as a black dot against the Sun’s disc. A transit of Venus brought Captain Cook out to the Pacific in 1769; his job was to make observations to enable mathematicians to calculate the distance between the Earth and the Sun. There will not be another transit of Venus until June 2004, according to a new book called “Seeing the Southern Sky” by David Calder, which was the source of all this information. Catching on CHERTSEY went on a car-buying spree at the week-end. A Christchurch man and his sister both offered cars for sale, quite separately, and both were bought by residents of the tiny Mid-Canterbury hamlet.

T wizelites ARE Twizel people regarded as second-class citizens? One resident of the hydro construction town thinks that “Twizelites” are branded as being different from people who live in permanent towns. Two examples given in a letter to the “Twizel Chronicle” are the exclusion of children from the audience for the TV show “It’s in the Bag” when it came to Twizel and the distrustfulness of a visiting retailer from Timaru, who insisted that Twizel people leave their prams and shopping bags outside the door of his “bargain warehouse.” The reason given was that it was a measure to prevent stealing. "When I asked if the people of Timaru did not steal, the gentleman at the door laughed,” complained the correspondent. He, or she, pointed out that when going to town, people did not have to leave their prams, pushchairs and shopping bags at the doors of any shops. “Perhaps if we were to wear a sign saying we were from Twizel, we would be made to do so. Why should we be subjected to this sort of discrimination just because we happen to live in a M.O.W. village?” The Twizel Community Council explains in a footnote that children were excluded from the television audience because of the great demand for tickets.

Fastest worm HAROLD wiggled and squirmed past a field of 96 contestants down a 30cm racecourse to win what was billed as the world’s first worm race in the town of Kingfisher, Oklahoma, at the week-end. The winner’s trophy, the “wormy”, was presented to John Harris, aged eight, who said he had had no chance to train Harold because he had bought the worm just before the race for 25c. “All I did was tell it to go a couple of times,” he said. “Before the race, I petted it.” Race officials said seven worms passed out on the track, two were disqualified on suspicion of drunkenness, and one was disqualified because it was made of rubber. Extending CANTERBURY University’s department of extension studies is really extending itself this year. It plans to take people interested in geology on a study tour of central Australia in the August school holidays. The biggest desert island in the world is apparently something rather special from the' geological point of view. It’s centre has no sedimentation, and is considered unchanged since Precambrian times. The visitors will see such famous formations as Ayers Rock, the salt lakes, the Coober Pedy opal field, and the Finke River thought to be the oldest river in the world. They will each pay about $9OO. Suspicious “RUGBY union Keeping Mum” said a headline on the front page of “The Press” on Saturday. “Does Mr Walker know about this?” asks a North Otago reader. —Garry Arthur -ft

MS Multiple OmOSy Sclerosis