Prince dumps photographers

Press, 9 April 1981, Page 1

Prince dumps photographers

By

LES BLOXHAM

Prince - Charles thundered round the Ohau canal excavations near Twizel yesterday at the controls of. a 50-tonne Ministry of Works dump truck. The Prince took over from the regular driver, Mr Bruce Scott, and drove the huge vehicle for several minutes during his visit to the Upper Waitaki hydro-power development scheme. At one stage it appeared that the Prince might have steered the truck direct at the gaggle of photographers who were more intent on recording the occasion than . keeping clear of the Royal progress. In fact, the exercise indirectly earned them a Royal rebuke. After Prince Charles had climbed from the cab, two British photographers threw protocol to the wind and bluntly asked him to return to the truck and pose for more pictures. Surprisingly the Prince obliged, standing in front of the cab with one hand on the ladder. But he ignored further requests from photographers to

climb back into the cab, and then quickly left the scene.

A few minutes later the press party got the message: the Prince was not amused by the photographers’ antics. “His Royal Highness does not . want another performance like the one round the dump truck: there will be no more photographs at this stage,” they were told by Mr R. Butler, the news media liaison officer, as they waited for the Prince to emerge from the partly built Ohau B power station. The photographers were then whisked away in their bus,- leaving Prince Charles . free to talk unobstructed to 50 construction workers outside the powerhouse. The Prince was accompanied on his three-hour tour of the scheme by the Minister of Energy (Mr Birch) and the project engineer, Mr Max Smith. At Twizel, when the news media, group caught up with the Royal party, reporters questioned the Prince’s press secretary, Mr Warwick Hutchings, about the banning of the news media after the

Prince drove a dump truck.

He denied that Prince Charles, or anyone in the Royal party, had barined the news media, according to the Press Association. After the Prince’s walkabout at Twizel, Mr Smith admitted that he gave the order banning the news media. “I did the wrong thing. I do admit that,” , Mr Smith said. “It was not done maliciously, I assure you,” he told reporters. Mr Smith said he had asked a girl in his vehicle to pass a message ahead by radio to the news media party. He said he had told the girl to say: “We don’t want any more of this.” Two of three people were involved after that and the message got a bit “screwed up along the way,” Mr Smith said. A dense blanket of fog that covered the Mackenzie Basin earlier in the day almost prevented the Royal visit to the 32,400 ha Haldon station at the top end of Lake Benmore. However, by 10.30 a.m., the fog had lifted sufficiently to allow the Royal New Zealand Air Force’s Andovers to sneak

into the station’s airstrip only 15 minutes behind schedule. The Prince was shown some of the Innes family’s 32,000 head of stock, which include deer principally farmed for their velvet. He watched Herefords being drafted, visited the local seven-pupil school, and then was the family’s guest for lunch on the veranda of the 100-year-old h-'mestead. The cold buffet included mutton, ham, and trout caught by three of the Innes children, Dan, Michael, and Ben, and Christopher Kerr, the son of one of the station’s employees. The fog had dispersed completely by lunchtime, affording the Prince an outstanding view from the terrace of Mount Cook and its adjacent peaks. Later, he was taken by jet boat from the farm across the lake to inspect the hydro-development work. Then it was to Twizel where thousands had gathered to see his “walk among the people.”

The Prince and his party left the Pukaki airstrip in the Andovers for Manapouri about 5 p.m.