Reporter’s diary

Press, 26 August 1982, Page 2

Reporter’s diary

Formal occasion JOHN STEED walked again in Cathedral Square yesterday morning.. The travel editor of “The Press,” Les Bloxham (the one with “The Times” under his arm in the photograph), is being shown into a London taxi by Darryl Park, of The promotions staff of Air New Zealand. They were on their way to Mona Vale, and a Devonshire tea celebration of the first flight

yesterday of Air New Zealand’s new service to London. A red London bus took a large group of travel agents to the morning tea party. Darryl Park is a former Canterbury rugby representative; the driver of the “taxi” was Vaughan Brown, the Canterbury cricketer — also on Air New Zealand’s promotions staff, Walkabout

K SMALL party of Australian journalists know a lot more about the South Island after a marathon journey by car between Westport and Dunedin last week. As if their chosen route was not long enough —800 km or so — they added substantially to their journey by two navigational errors: they missed, .the Charleston turn-off and drove most of the way through the lower Buller Gorge before realising their mistake; much later in the day they discovered they were on the way to the Treble Cone ski-field, near Wanaka. instead of approaching Cromwell. Stiff and sore after the rigours of the journey. they still voted the scenery “the greatest.” London Post

NEW Zealanders visiting London may. for . a fee, take advantage of a new mail collection and redirecting service • introduced by the weekly newspaper, "New Zealand News U.K.” The existing free mail-handling service provided by the New Zealand High Commission will end in October. “New Zealand News” is advertising its collection service at $6 for two months. $lO for four months, and $l4 for six months. The newspaper will redirect" mail anywhere in Europe for $2O. $35, and $5O respectively . for these periods. “New Zealand News UK” will run the collection service from its office in Royal Opera Arcade, next to New Zealand House, beginning- next Wednesday. Re-

quests to use the service (and the money) have to be. sent to: Mailbag, P.O. Box 99, Berwick-upon-Tweed, TD 15 IBW , Northumberland — the newspaper’s , headquarters in Britain. Success story THE QUEEN MOTHER, at 82, continues to charm the birds out of the trees, and it seems she can also charm the trees out of the earth, says Peterborough, a “Daily Telegraph” columnist. A dwarf silver birch that she planted two years ago has already grown by more than two feet. In July, 1980. as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, she visited the gardens at Worth Court, a private house near Sandwith, which is owned by. Frank Rose, a wholesale grocer. He recalls how he /expected the Queen Mother to sprinkle just one shovelful of soil over the roots when planting it, but. she cheerfully said, ‘Three for luck.’ Perhaps that’s why the tree, which is supposed to be a dwarf, is growing so fast...! ..

The Young Doctors IN THE event of medical •emergencies aboard a space shuttle, crew members could, in most cases, treat themselves . with the aid of two

backpack-type medical bags, savs “Flight Safety,” published by the flight operations branch of the Ministry of Transport’s civil aviation division. The bags, weighing a total of only 4kg, are known as the Shuttle Orbiter MediCal System. They contain 110 items, including 16 different injectable and 27 different oral medications, a oackage of diagnostic equipment, more than half a dozen ointments, a stethoscope, catheters,, 'dental instruments, tourniquets, assorted bandages, eye patches, local anaesthetics,' sutures and a scalpel. The absence of gravity may make treatment difficult. Bleeding, the magazine says, could be a messy problem. The blood just drifts around and sticks to everything it touches. Any form of bleeding must therefore be controlled immediately. “If external heart massage or artificial respiration, becomes necessary, the victim- must be strapped to a couch in the shuttle cockpit, face up,” the article says. “The astronaut administering the treatment must then either strap himself to the victim or wedge himself against some fixture in order to apply a force and not propel himself in the opposite direction without the restraining effect of gravity."