Reporter’s diary

Press, 10 November 1981, Page 2

Reporter’s diary

Direct hit GUY FAWKES Day rockets are meant to go straight up, let off a bang and cause a few neighbourhood dogs to whimper. But some are badly aimed, even in this day of sophisticated fireworks technology, and the result has made one Fehdalton woman more . than a bit cross. She is 84 years old, and was out watering her front lawn when the festivities were in full swing last week. Suddenly, from out of the suburban dark, two rockets came zinging low over the ground, not straight, iip at all. They burnt down a box hedge she had been nurturing for 20 years, within four feet of the garage. Luckily for the woman, she had paid a man to cut it all back recently, so there was less to burn. She was also lucky to have neighbours . getting ready to set off their own fireworks, because they raised the alarm while she was using the hose at the

other side of the house. Big Book NEW ZEALAND’S largest book is on display at Whitcoulls this week. It is a foljo of watercolours by the late Charles Heaphy, explorer, civil servant, soldier, parliamentarian and artist. Each page of the book is the size of a daily newspaper, and that has allowed all but four of the volume’s paintings to be reproduced in facsimile. Each page had to be folded by hand, by two men. A craftsman had to be called out of retirement to hand-sew the pages into sections. The book was written by Anthony Murray-Oliver, an art historian. Personal link WHEN THE new St James Walkway was opened at Lewis Pass on Saturday, at least one man could talk about his personal ties with the area without reaching too far into his family’s past.

Mr P. H. C. (Bing) Lucas, the Director-General of Lands, said his father and uncle had taken pack horses over the pass in 1910 to break in a Maruia Valley farm. They decided after some weeks that the farm could not support two families, so they tossed a coin and his father returned to Christchurch. If it had gone the other way, Mr Lucas said he might have been at the opening as a local farmer. Quiet pay WORKERS at a Sydney building site are being paid 50 cents an hour as a disabil- . ity allowance after neighbours complained about the noise they made. The money is paid because the workers have been banned from shouting or playing radios on the’site. They are building a National Acoustics Laboratory centre designed to help deaf people. »•- '

Prepared THE NORTH Canterbury Round Table, offering its services, had been the only local group to respond to a $lOO,OOO Civil Defence publicity campaign, the Rangiora Borough Council was told last week. In Christchurch, only three groups had offered help, and one was Family Planning.. Maybe it was just a case of making sure they were ready for any emergency, said Cr D. J. Williams. Heavy breathing THE ALLIGATOR is doing just fine, thanks, but his rescuer may not be feeling too well. In Jerusalem, a veterinarian has given the kiss of life to a sick alligator which stopped breathing during an operation. Oren (the . alligator) had been bitten on a foreleg by a companion beast, Big Earl, at an Israeli tourist resort. ’ A thick wooden pole had been jammed between Oren’s

teeth while his wound was cleaned and bandaged, and Dr Bernard Hurwitz had to think fast when the sick beast stopped breathing. He gave mouth-to-mouth resuscitation for several minutes until the alligator came right. Oren was grateful, according to all accounts, and Dr Hurwitz was puffed. The good life AIRLINE passengers bound for Moscow from warmer parts of Russia at this time of year stock up heavily on fruit, and stuff boxes and bags of it anywhere they can on the planes. In spring, it’s the same story with flowers. Many Muscovites are not gardeners because they don’t have the land to put in vegetables or flowers. But they are catching on, and one man is reported to have made a killing by turning his flat into a hothouse. Books on kitchen gardening are popu-. lar, and Western manuals on running your own allotment are doing the rounds in priv-ately-circulated copies.