Pamela’s $4700 hug

Press, 25 February 1980, Page 6

Pamela’s $4700 hug

PA .n.' Auckland Walt Disney’s billionaire cartoon character, Uncle Scrooge McDuck, would have been: in his element grovelling, among a million one-dollar notes at the St Hellers Reserve yesterday afternoon.-.. ... .But it was. Mrs; Pam Johnstone’s -chance to live out her wildest fantasies as she raced against the clock tb clutch on to as much money? is. she could in 30 secondsiWher. prize in the “MillicnDoll'arGrab” competition run by Radio Haurakl. : . . Hopeful contestants had . to speak' on air 'for 30 sec-

onds on a set topic without saying “um” or “ah” if they wanted a chance at the million dollars. Mrs Johnstone, of Mangere, had to speak about meat pies. She said she did not regard herself as a particularly good speaker but had the “good fortune” ! to have (found a lot of things in pies before, so had plenty to talk about Before the “grab,” Mrs Johnstone estimated she would get about $3OOO based on trials she had done with, blank pieces of paper cut to size by her husband, Ivan. ■ . : For a brief period yester- - day she was probably- the? ’

highest-paid New Zealander earning $157 a second, or $4709 in the halfminute she had in the Imhigh stack of money piled in a small glasshouse. Radio Hauraki received the new notes in numerically ordered bundles from the Reserve Bank. It had the daunting job of breaking them up for the competition until one of the organisers had the novel idea of using a cementmixer for the job. That was the easy part. Now staff members have to put the loose money back into SIOO-bundles by hand —- with the Queen facing up. ’■