Reporter's Diary

Press, 24 September 1980, Page 2

Reporter's Diary

Jubilee FAIRLEIGH Kindergarten, at 27A Garden Road, •Fendalton, will celebrate its jubilee next month and hopes to gather together as many people as possible who have attended it in the past. The organisers plan a ball, a family picnic, an afternoon tea, a wine and cheese evening, and a barbecue and expect fun and games when all the former pupils meet, as it will be the first time most of them will have seen one another sincg. they were four.

Tracing history MISS JUNE Sutherland, head teacher at Fairleigh Kindergarten, should be remembered by many of the 1600 past pupils —' she has been there for the last 33 years. The jubilee celebrations, she says, are to mark the opening of the kindergarten at its,, present site, on October 17, 1930. Before that, it was run from 24 Holm-, wood Road, and before that it was situated at 49 Rossall Street and was-

known as the Misses Lawrence Prep. School. Miss Sutherland says that the jubilee organisers are still trying to piece together the history of the kindergarten, and would be grateful if anybody knowing about, its early years would get in touch with her at Fairleigh, telephone 554-502, in the mornings.

Mowing the snoiv THE SIGHT of six young people mowing the snow at Mount Hutt in the last fortnight has been the source ( of considerable amusement for -innumerable skiers. But, the youngsters only appeared to be mowing the snow — they were carrying out the first testing in the world of two new snow-throw-ers, machines developed for cleaning snow from paths and ' driveways in areas which get heavy snowfalls, The machines,

which look similar to conventional lawnmowers, were built in North America, but have been sent to New Zealand to be tested during our winter so that they will be ready for the North American winter market. Each machine has done up to 10b hours work at the hands of Methven High School pupils, who were employed by Brown Bros Engineers, of Christchurch, agent for the American makers, to test the' snow throwers at Mount Hutt. The pupils were able to earn themselves pocket money during the August holidays, as well as fit in , a little ski-ing while up on the mountain.

Slugged SHORT, a grey duck, has for three years been living in the lap of luxury in the creek at the back of Coid-

stream Court. A family whose property backs on to the stream adopted the duck, named her Short (because she was the runt of the brood), and she has been there ever since. "She never bothered to go back to Lake Ellesmere,” her adopted mother said yesterday. “She had it much too good here.” But one day during the August school holidays, Short’s waddle looked more like a limp, and so Mr • Jim Baggstrom, the Christchurch City Council’s park ranger was called in. Mr Baggstrom found an air gun pellet lodged inside Short’s shoulder, and pulled it out. It was, he said sadly, quite common at the moment. School children with nothing better to do had obviously fired air guns at the ducks on the river. Consequently, he has been attending .to several sick ducks in the last few weeks.

Too many cooks ... TALES of unexpected contents in meals continue to turn up. After reading yesterday’s item about the man who had eaten slices of onion, oblivious to the fact that his wife and daughter had been using them to rub on their chilblains, a reader told us about his aunt’s special pot of jam. She kept it hidden away in a cupboard and would take a teaspoonful daily. She had mixed senna powder with the jam, and found that just a spoonful of the mixture, made . her daily constitutional more easy. But one day, one of her elder daughters decided to make a jam tart and, unbeknown to the aunt, the girl used the special jam pot. It was, the family discovered, a very moving meal.

Silent prayer JUDGING by the response to yesterday’s item about the Sumner parishioner who complained about the lifeboat siren disturbing the service at her church last Sunday,, a number of Sumner residents are not overly enthusiastic about the siren’s noise. But one churchgoer in Sumner reports that at his church, if the siren sounds during the service the minister interrupts. the proceedings to pray for “those in peril on the sea.”