Reporter’s Diary

Press, 5 October 1977, Page 2

Reporter’s Diary

Missionary's relics

MR K. KIDD, a Christchurch book collector, was particularly interested in the first episode of TVl’s costly epic, “The Governor.” He owns three books which were once the property of the principal character in the opening episode, Henry Williams, the missionary. They are a New Testament and a prayer book, both in Maori, and a religious treatise by Lord Sumner, who later became Archbishop of Canterbury. Tie three books, all specially bound as a presentation set in black calf with gold tooling, were given to the missionary by his son, Edwin, on his birthday in 1853. Another who took a close interest in the programme was Dr Henry Williams, of Christchurch, who is Archdeacon Williams’s great-great-grand-son. He was “quite impressed” with the portrayal of his forebear, although he thought the accent was rather too North of England. “Jaws” reject THE LUCKY Australian surfer who was bitten by a white pointer shark, tasted, and then rejected, was met by a Christchurch man, Simon Cawley, recently. He writes that the young surfer was

walking with the aid of an iron, in spite of having 120 stitches in his leg. The attack happened at a South Australian spot called Cactus Beach, and the “Jaws” in question was four metres long. Simon Cawley says the 17-year-old surfer hopes to make the best of his experience by selling his story to an American news magazine for $2OOO. Snap! STAFF of Centrepoint Car Sales spent a quiet day yesterday trying to calculate the odds against what happened there on Saturday. Two of the cars which passed through their portals that day had exactly the same registrat i o n numbers (but different prefixes, naturally). Both had the number 2266. Last “Lil Abner” THERE will be consternation in Dogpatch, United States, and points north, east, south and west, when word gets out that Al Capp, who created the denizens of his “Lil Abner” comic strip in 1934, is retiring and calling it quits for the strip. Abner, Daisy Mae, Mammy and Pappv Yokum, Hairless Joe and Lonsome Polecat, Available and Stupefyin’ Jones

and all their ilk will cease to live in the comics on Sunday, November 13. At one time they brought mirth to the pages of 900 newspapers, and about 400 still carry the strip, which the New York “Daily News” dropped some months ago, Capp, who is 68, lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. All roads lead . ~ “HENCEFORWARD no wheeled vehicles whatsoever will be allowed within the precincts of the city from sunrise until the hour before dusk; those which have entered during the night and are stili within the city at dawn, must halt and stand empty until the appointed hour.” That city by-law might in time become a reality, motor traders were warned yesterday by Sir Jack Newman, chairman of the T.N.L., Ltd, unless they embarked on an extensive rethinking of the industry’s principles and goals. The edict he quoted came from the well-known traffic planner, Julius Caesar, in 448. C. The Earwig FINDING a telephone number on the Scottish island of Lewis can be a tedious business, because many people have the same name. So the hundreds of MacDonalds and MacLeods are being identified in the new telephone directories by their Gaelic nicknames. Now locals can

easily identify their friends as “Donald the son o f Looking,” “Red Samson” or “The Earwig”. Weavin' and bobbin NOW that skipping has become the latest health craze, there is renewed interest in skipping ropes and rhymes. A Christchurch skipper has been sent a set of traditional Yorkshire skipping ropes, made from old weaving bobbins which were used to hold the fine yarn in the shuttles of Yorkshire woollen mills. The rope is old-fashioned plaited jute, popular as window-sash cord in Victorian houses. It was accompanied by a selection of traditional English skipping rhymes, such as “Julius Caesar, The Roman geezer, Squashed his wife With a lemon squeezer.’* No evidence THE police were unable to get far with one prosecution in the Magistrate’s Court yesterday. The prosecutor had to ask for leave to withdraw the matter — a charge against a male hairdresser of having heroin for the purpose of supply — because the exhibit on which the whole case revolved had “disappeared.” Mr N. L. Bradford, S.M., allowed the police to withdraw the charge, and awarded the hairdresser costs of $3O — to be paid by the Justice Department. —Garry Arthur