Reporter’s diary

Press, 6 July 1985, Page 2

Reporter’s diary

Deep bores JOHN WEEBER, the North Canterbury Catchment, Board’s geologist, is looking for more information about the ' network of wells in Christchurch, many of them now abandoned. He has records of more than 1000 wells, but thinks that probably twice that number were drilled over the years. Mr Weeber is interested in borrowing any old photographs relating to welldrillers and fountains, and any old well-drilling diaries that might be tucked away in private homes. He has records and pictures of two early well-drillers, J. W. Horne and Job Osborne, but lacks information about others who worked in the city. He is interested in any unused and capped wells in back gardens where the board can measure water levels from time to time. Without long-term records on levels, it is difficult to see a pattern of what is happening below ground over the years. Many well records for Christchurch go back only about 10 years. The photograph of drillers with a new well in Cathedral Square was taken near the Cathedral. The drilling structure hides most of the spire. This well was drilled in 1900. To dramatise their wells, many drillers placed reducing pipes over the regular pipe, causing the water to spout unnaturally high. In this photograph, a black backcloth has been draped over the back of the drilling structure to highlight the water spout. Artesian AN 1862 advertisement in “The Press” emphasised the problems early Christchurch settlers were having in maintaining a clean water supply. Mr W. Gee begged to inform his customers, mainly hotel and boardinghouse keepers, that he had sunk an artesian well near Colombo Street. He said it gave him “an inexhaustible supply of the purest water,” and he could confidently recommend his new stock of ginger beer, lemonade, soda water, and other summer drinks. Mr Gee described himself as a pastrycook, confectioner, and manufacturer of aerated waters. He said that businessmen in his line had found it impossible to produce first-class beverages because water taken from rivers and ordinary wells had been “rendered impure or unwholesome” by vegetable matter and surface drainage. It is difficult to tell whether Mr Gee’s

was an authentic artesian well because there are no records of its depth, A Mr Taylor, a brewer, had earlier advertised his own artesian well in 1858, but it was only 6m deep and probably in gravels near the surface. The first public water supply artesian well was drilled in 1864, at the corner of Tuam Street and the then-Ferry Road (High Street). Six others were put down that year. Lots of Lego YOU HAVE seen cathedrals built of matchsticks and ships built of toothpicks, and now snap-together plastic blocks have been used to build a wide range of models of structures and vehicles, including Parliament’s Beehive in Wellington. More than 800,000 Lego bricks were used to build the displays in the Lego World Show, which will come in August to the Farmers department store in Christchurch after exhibitions in the North Island. The show was seen by more than a million people in Australia. Models were built at the Lego factory in Denmark. They have been glued together so that they will not fly apart when being moved. A history of transport section will range from

dug-out canoes and sailing ships to the Apollo moonlander and the space shuttle Columbia. Other displays will include a fun fair with moving rides, a huge castle with knights, and a safari scene. Rabbit golf WANAKA golfers have to face more than the ordinary hazards — they have to face rabbits. The maintenance staff cannot use 1080 poison to attack the rabbits because the course is in the town. A new anti-coagulant pellet may now be tried, after the Upper Clutha Pest Destruction Board said that a simple antidote could be used if domestic pets got hold of the pellets. If the anti-coagulant does not work, local residents may carry on with their traditional method of clearing the course: on an early spring evening they go to the course to shoot as many of the pests as they can scare up. Ex-Leanders SOUTH ISLAND men who served in H.M.S. Leander when she was torpedoed by the Japanese in 1943 will hold their annual reunion in Christchurch next Saturday, 42 to the day after 29

young New Zealanders died in the Solomon Islands when a torpedo struck the cruiser amidships. About 50 members of the South Island branch of the Ex-Leanders’ Association will be here. Eighty members are still alive. The Leander’s boilerroom and engine-room were hit, but the ship did not sink. Damage control efforts by mostly inexperienced sailors saved her. Gertrude ANNE WHITE, the American tennis player who got a rise out of her opponent and spectators at Wimbledon recently when she wore a white body suit instead of the traditional costume, was just the latest in a line of women who have challenged convention. Suzanne Lengle, the Wimbledon winner in 1919, was very conventional in a dress that came to just below the knee. By the time Maureen Connelly was tops in the sport during the 19505, the hemline had risen to about mid-thigh. But it was an American, Gertrude Moran, who raised eyebrows when she came on to the Wimbledon court in 1949 wearing frilly pants. She became know as “Gorgeous Gussie” Moran. The body suit may never appear again because it is too uncomfortable and hot.