Reporter's Diary

Press, 6 May 1980, Page 2

Reporter's Diary

Invasion? WHEN Mr J. R. Orchiston, his wife and four young children awoke just after midnight to the sound of a loud explosion followed by bursts of gunfire and loud shouting outside their home in Waitati valley, near Dunedin, they were understandably alarmed. They looked out the window. and they could see “what appeared to be two groups of drunken louts on the road immediately outside’ their home, firing at each other.” Mr Orchiston called the police. Then, as he says .in a letter to the “Otago Daily Times”, “I went out to investigate (not without some hesitation), and to my utter amazement. I discovered' two men with rifles under my mailbox and a dozen, more on the roadside in combat uniform.” On his annearance. the firing stonned and it then became clear that some ehactly mistaVe' had baen made. Through an o',erthe A"nv had forgotten to tell Mr Orchiston that ;t woidd hold an orientation and combat exercise outside his home

in the middle of the night. Lieutenant-Colonel C. P. Geary, the commissioned officer of the Otago University Medical Unit, Territorial Force, which was taking part in the exercise, said it was “an unfortunate oversight” and apologised unreservedly to the Orchistons. Try, try again. AFTER fathering 19 sons, Mr Harold Townsend, aged 83, of London was granted his dearest wish last weeß — his wife eave birth to a daughter. The baby girl, Rebecca, has nine brothers and 10 half-brothers from her father’s two previous marriages. Mr Townsend attributes his fitness down to hard work in his fulltime job as a gardener and to keening awav from alcohol. “Now I reckon I can retire,” he said when he heard the news of his daughter’s arrival. In thf> dark

ON SOrtAL nights members r,f Returned Services Association clubs stand in 'Hence and in darkness for a minute at 9 n.m. as a measure of respect, to old comrades. Last Satur-

day, at the Sumner R.S.A. club, the loungeroom lights were switched off at 9 p.m., as is the custom, and members stood for the required 60s in silence. Just as‘the 60s were up, a woman came into the lounge from the nearby powder room (where the lights had not been switched out) and was, naturally, puzzled why the room was in darkness. “What the hell’s happened to the lights?” she said. Because the room was in total silence, everyone heard, and laughed. The custom was explained to her. His master’s bus WHILE travelling by bus from Rangiora to Christchurch recently, a reader writes, she saw a little fox terrier run out in front of the bus and roll over on the road. Naturally, the passengers were horrified. The bus driver was, too. He realised at that moment that it was his own dog that was in front. He stopped the bus and hopped out smartly, she savs. and hurried the dog through the gate if had inst rushed out of. It was the bus driver’s home, it turned, out. and the dog must have sensed that his master was coming near. She said the driver vowed to make sure his gate was properly shut in future.

Well-earned rest TWO young men were seen huffing and puffing along Edgeware Road the other day, carrying a big sofa. After they had gone a few yards they put the sofa down carefully, a reader reports, opened the back-pack on the sofa and produced a bottle of beer and two glasses. The two then sat on the sofa, relaxing in the sun by the roadside, drank their wellearned beer, and got their breath back ready for the next effort. Half an hour later, glasses and bottle were stowed away in the pack, the sofa was picked up and the two resumed their journey to their destination. In theory . . . DURING a game of soccer between Burwood and St Albans Working Men’s Club eight-year-olds on Saturday, two lads in the Burwood team (which lost 1-4) were noticed chatting away through most of the game. When it was over, the father of one of. the hoys was heard chastising his son for talking too much instead of playing the game. “We weren’t talking,” the boy replied indignantly. “we were planning how to get a goal.”