Random reminder

Press, 4 July 1985, Page 14

Random reminder

A VENGEANCE Many folk appearing in Life on Earth wonder how they came by the part they are destined to play: others strut the stage with confident step knowing precisely how they are to act — and why. An elderly Christchurch man, whom some would criticise on the wisdom of his beer consumption, has no regrets or doubts about the role he has been called on to play; and is still playing to the best of his ability. What else, he asks, could be expected of him? When he was a little boy of primary school age he was climbing up the children’s slides in the South Brighton Domain when he overbalanced and fell on some jagged glass. With a badly bleeding leg, he was carried to the Estuary down by the old jetty, where it was bathed and bandaged. It healed well with no stitches, but left a scar which 60 years later is still visible.

Another eight years went by and as a Christchurch Boys’ High School pupil he was picnicking at Diamond Harbour. After a swim from the wharf where the launches pulled in to the old bathing sheds, no mean distance for a learner swimmer, he was walking rather shakily up a steep bank to where he had undressed when he fell on some jagged glass. On standing up, a largish portion of glass remained stuck in his chest, which was bleeding profusely. Carefully he eased the glass out of his flesh and flung it a little way up the hill. Here, believe it or not, he stumbled again, this time embedding the same piece of glass in his right forearm. Both scars are still visible. On each of these three occasion the glass inflicting these injuries was that of an amber-coloured beer bottle. He has fully enjoyed taking it out of them ever since.