Reporter’s diary

Press, 8 January 1983, Page 2

Reporter’s diary

Sail tail

THE ONLY qualification needed for yachts to enter an 18-mile handicap race in the Bay of Islands tomorrow is height. The Tall Ships Trophy Race, organised by the Russell Boating Club, is ,held mainly for fun. Each year since the event started in 1976. about 40 yachts, all with a minimum of two masts and a hull length no shorter than 9.1 m, have taken part. About half the entries are overseas oceangoing yachts. The organisers of the race are hoping that the Spirit of Adventure and the 18m brigantine Breeze will enter the race this year if the weather is right. ’ Sordid soaps IT IS not only the lascivious scenes from "Brideshead Revisited" and “A Voyage Round My Father" that need attention from the censor's knife, according to a speaker at a Jehovah's Witness convention in Whangarei last week-end. Mr J. E. Gibbons, of Auckland, told the 2000 delegates at the convention that moral corruption is brought into homes through' soap operas. The "sordid lives of soap opera stars"

have, become the daily diet of a large segment of the public, he said. He urged people not to watch television programmes featuring immorality and violence and advised parents to protect their children from such "sordid entertainment." Bell appeal MEMBERS of the congregation of St Paul's church in Papanui have been working hard over the last 18 months to raise the $22,000 to send the church’s six bells to England for retuning and refitting. The vicar of St Paul's, the Rev. David Boyd, says that the bells of St Paul's were the earliest set of bells in New Zealand to be change-rung. They were installed in 1880 and for almost a year the ringers from the Christchurch Cathedral practised on them. The church’s bells have had a chequered history, however. The five original bells for the church were given by Mr John Matson, but they were lost on their way from England when their ship, the Knowlesly Hall, sank off the South African coast. For tunately the bells were insured and their replacements

were eventually hung in the bell tower of St Paul's. A new bell tower was needed by 1912 but, after two years, the new tower was declared unsafe. The bells remained silent until 1926 until money was given by Mr Henry Matson to build a heavy timber gantry for them. Nearly 57 years later, the timber frame has become loose and a new steel frame is needed. The frame will be erected within the tower early this year, says Mr Boyd. A sixth bell was added to the set in 1970, but the new steel frame will have space for two extra bells. Mr Boyd is hoping that someone who has strong connections with St Paul's will give the two new bells to the church to make a full peal of eight. Workers unite ELEPHANTS employed in the Asian timber trade should work nine-to-five jobs and should get plenty of sex. according to a Burmese elephant expert. U Toke Gale, a renowned timber elephant specialist, says that more effective management techniques are needed to counter rising mortality among cap-

tive elephants. Reports have shown that the life-span of elephants has been reduced from between 80 to 150 years in the wild to 60 or 70 years in captivity. They also have an alarmingly low reproduction rate. According to U Gale, the only way to reverse the problem is to give the elephants less work and more play. They should be required to work only eight hours a day and they needed to hear "sweet nothings” from their keepers. They would readily 'produce if they were given enough time "to consort with members of the opposite sex." Dropping in CUSTOMERS entering the Crown Hotel, Timaru, for lunch last Sunday were startled when a car followed them through the hotel’s double door. They were even more startled when the driver of the Mini raucously sounded his horn and demanded "lunch for two." The mystery was explained when the Crown's new proprietor. Mr Pat Cummins, appeared and welcomed the driver as an old mate from the West Coast who was just driving in for a visit.