Reporter's Diary

Press, 1 November 1977, Page 2

Reporter's Diary

With a smile WAS it innate cheerfulness or a certain sense of maliciousness which prompted the beaming smile from the postwoman? A colleague working in his garden yesterday morning noticed her coming down the street. She reached his property, searched through the bundle of mail in hethand, withdrew one envelope, and, with an ear-to-ear grin, popped it in his letterbox. He sent one of his children to collect the envelope. It was his rate demand. Well travelled

A BEER bottle with a note inside, which was tossed into the sea at Hong Kong three years and a half ago, has turned up 32,000 km away on the Isle of Wight, Britain. A Hong Kong student, Robert Barnett, threw the bottle, containing his name and address, into the sea in 1974 and forgot about it. Last week he received a letter from Mrs Janet Tedman, a teacher at the St Boniface Primary School on the Isle of Wight, who said that a kiosk attendant has picked the bottle up on a beach and had given it to her. Coal carrv

A CHRISTCHURCH-born stonemason will attempt to break the world distance record for carrying a 1121 b sack of coal next week. John Hill aged 25, will try to break the existing record of 34.5 km. It will be his second attempt. In Scotland last year, he covered 40km but this was not officially recognised. This time, the Christchurch Kiwanis Club will attend to all the

elaborate requirements to ensure that the results are acceptable to the “Guineas Book of Records.” Mr Hill will make the attempt to raise funds for the Hohepa School for Handicapped Children. He will start from the school at 6 a.m. on November 10. His route through the city will take him from Cashmere, in the south, to Northcote and from Linwood to Hagley Park. It will pass through Cathedral Square five times and through 88 sets of traffic lights. He will be accompanied throughout by a truck, and official distance recorder, and, in parts, by pipe bands. During the attempt, officials on the truck will accept additional sponsorship from passers-by. Mr Hill says that if he can get sponsorship for $lOO a kilometre he will try to walk all day. He chose Hohepa as the recipient of his sponsorship because it does not benefit from any national appeals. Economical

SMOKERS who find the rising price of tobacco products inconvenient might well take the lead from an Italian in ways to assist their pockets and cut down on the amount they smoke. Mr V. Vecchi won the European pipesmoking championships in Montreux, France, at the week-end and, in doing so, set a world record. He made 3gm of tobacco last 3h. 50min. 50sec. without once letting it go out. A French woman won the women’s championship with a time of Ih. 46min. 43sec. The 400 competitors in the championships came from nine west European countries and Japan. Eight of the first 10 places went to Italians.

Butterflies ALL TEACHERS dread school-concert night but none as much as one young teacher in Christchurch who recently had her first experience of the event. She had spent weeks cutting and sewing crepe paper costumes for an elaborate production of “Peter and the Wolf”. On the day, two members of her class became violently ill and rearrangements had to be made to the cast. Then, a few minutes before the curtain went up on her item, several of the star performers were also suddenly sick. The item was promptly cancelled and the teacher spent the rest of the evening backstage holding, comforting, and cleaning up six vomiting children. She treated herself to a bottle of brandy on the way home. Space mail

A FORMER astronaut, Edgar Mitchell, has incurred the displeasure of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration by selling for $42,000 a stamp cover he took to rhe moon and back. The envelope, with a specialty cancelled stamp on it, was one of 55 Mr Mitchell carried among his personal belongings on the Apollo 14 mission. Mr Mitchell said the single cover was sold to place a value on the rest of the collection for insurance and estate purposes. But Mr D. Williamson, a N.A.SA. assistant administrator for special projects, said the agency never expected astronauts to sell items they took on trips as personal memorabilia. Big deposit

IT WOULD appear that the Post Office Savings Bank has decided to broaden its horizons in the hunt for new savings accounts. Pedestrians pass-

ing by the Thorrington Post Office in Colombo Street yesterday morning were surprised to find large and pungent evidence of the passage of a cow along the footpath sometime during the night. Just how it got there mystified most pedestrians but there was agreement that the cow’ had not been waiting for the bus at the nearby bus stop and that the Post Office seemed the most likely intended portof call. Hot box

REFERENCE in this column last week to the reception that "cute little aircraft”, the R.N.Z.A.F. Bristol Freighter, got from an American at Tan Son Nhuit airport during the Vietnam war, brought forth more recollections from Christchurch men who were associated with it at one time or another. During the period when the Bristol Freighter made its weekly run from Singapore with mail and supplies for New Zealand troops, and medical teams in Vietnam, the Tan Son Nhuit airport at Saigon was one of the busiest in the world. Its three runways were in almost continual use as supplies were brought in for the war and fighting aircraft sallied out on strike missions. Because of this, and the Bristol Freighter’s lumbering take-off, the plane was often kept at the end of the runway for long periods for a big enough gap to open in the traffic above to permit it to get off the ground. Conditions abroad were spartan to say the least. With no air-condi-tioning, those aboard the closed-up plane while it sat at the end of the runway with its engines going for up to an hour felt like medium-rare steaks by the time they finally got airborne.