Reporter's Diary

Press, 20 December 1978, Page 2

Reporter's Diary

Legendary hand A READER has written in to tell us of the different postage stamps being used in Northern Ireland. The stamps used to be the same as those issued in Britain, with a simple picture of the Queen and the denomination of the stamp. But now, in the left-hand corner, there is a crown, a star, and the “red hand of Ulster.” Our informant says that the hand “became the symbol of Ulster (not the six counties of Northern Ireland) when a legendary chieftain of the province cut off his hand in a moment of pique and threw it into the sea. His name was O’Neill and soothsavers said that his hand left a gap that became Lough Neagh — the biggest • inland lough in the British Isles — and raised an island in the Irish Sea that became the Isle of Man.”

Peals of bells A CHEVIOT woman has told us of a letter from her father in Papatoetoe. He had written to her about the bells at Loughborough — where is situated the foundry that made the bells at present being hung in Christchurch Cathedral. Her father had seen the Christchurch bells on television, she said, and they had reminded him of time he spent in Loughborough when he was a boy. It was a lovely market town, he wrote, and he used to stay with a friend near Taylors Foundry, where the Cathedral bells were made. The foundry had its own carillon of 29 bells, which used to be played every Saturday afternoon for about two hours. Near the foundry was a church with a peal of 13 bells, and bellringers used to go there from all over the Continent for competitions. “The bells would be rung continuously from 10 a.m. to midnight on these occasions,” he wrote. “They used to make a terrific din.” After World War I , Loughborough decided to erect a war memorial — and, as the town was famous for its bells, the most appropriate monument was a carillon. The bell tower eventually erect ed had a carillon of 49 bells, he said, ranging

from the size of a small car to the size of a pudding basin. Happy memories REMEMBER how hard it was, when the time came, to put your Teddy away with all the other “outgrown” toys? Well, now you can be together again, according to an advertisement in London’s “Guardian” newspaper. An advertisement for a gold-plated Teddy-bear pendant, “to honour Teddy’s seventyfifth anniversary,” says: “Believe it or not, it is now 75 years since the first fond owners clasped Teddy’s paw for the very first time. And that deserves a celebration.” The Teddy-bear pendants are made by the Franklin Mint, London, in a limited edition. Honest policy SPORTS staff on “The Press” who run a racing syndicate every year doubled their ' money yesterday without even placing a bet. At the end of each year, they draw out from the bank the money that has accrued during the year from the various wins they have had. When they went to draw out their winnings yesterday, they found a total of $9OO had built up. So they took a withdrawal slip for hat amount to the teller at the Post Office Savings Bank. She picked out two bags of $2O notes from her drawer and handed it to them — and off they went to split the winnings among the syndi-

cate. But when they got back to work and counted it, there was SIBOO in the two bags. The poor teller had miscounted. The syndicate took a vote on what to do with the extra S9OO and reluctantly, but unanimously, agreed that it would have to be returned to the bank. - Just for fun

A LIST of the games some people will doubtless get in their Christmas stockings is found in a catalogue published recently by an English amusement firm. It includes games called “Madame Guillotine,” “Organised Crime,” “Canadian Civil War,” "Arms Race,” and even “Nuclear War,” w'here players vie to “achieve world domination.” But the least pleasant game mentioned in the catalogue is called “Police State” in which the object is to “rise from peasant to dictator without being denounced by his opponents.” Too right! ONE OF the items listed on the menu of ah Akaroa restaurant recently was certainly well defined. It said: “Sweet • and sow pork.” Original Ham ON MONDAY just after she had read an item in "The Press” about - the Christchurch Teachers’ College in Dovedale Avenue, Ham, a Christchurch woman received a letter from her son about the original Ham Hall, in England.

Richard Lawrence, a former University of Canterbury student, who is now studying in Birmingham, wrote that he had recently travelled to “a little place called Dove Dale” on the border between Stafford and Derby counties. In one small village, he wrote, he came across Ham Hall, one of the many buildings owned by the National Trust. Ham Hall was built in the eighteenth century, and John Charles Watts Russell, the son of the man who built it. went out to New Zealand and bought the land that is now part of the University of Canterbury. He called it Ham Farm, after his old home. Mr Lawrence said he was able to tell the official at Ham Hall that he came from the “new” Ham. Voteless women THE PRIME Minister of Liechtenstein (Mr Hans Brunhart) was faced with an embarrassing problem recently when his country was elected to be the twenty-first member of the Council of Europe. In Liechtenstein, only men over the age of 20 have the right to vote, and the Declaration of Human Rights that Mr Brunhart had to sign as a council member concerned sexual equality. A proposal by his parliament that the franchise be extended to women has twice been defeated in a referendum — narrowly in 1971 and by an increased majority in 1973. — Felicity Price