Reporter’s diary

Press, 3 August 1985, Page 2

Reporter’s diary

Whoa, there KNIGHTHOOD’S flower may have wilted centuries ago but some of the valour of ancient knights seems to have rubbed off on women. This week, a hairdresser bound for New Brighton along Pages Road saw a deed that needed doing, and did it. A small, riderless pony was zig-zagging in and out of the traffic. The woman, who never wears shoes when driving, leaped out in her stocking feet and pursued the pony, which had no intention of being caught. Finally, in the grass and mud of the Pages Road mounds, the pony surrendered, giving in to the woman’s sweet-talking ways. Others helped keep the pony from breaking loose again. When she arrived at work, the woman was flushed and exalted. And coated in mud. Surinam OUR RECENT story about Surinam, a South American country between Guyana and French Guiana, revived memories of her homeland for a Coalgate woman. She has lived in New Zealand for seven years with her Dutch-born husband, and has had three children here. When she entered New Zealand, she was told by the Immigration Division that she might be the only Surinam citizen living here. Now she wants to know if anyone else from Surinam has reached New Zealand, so that she can swap chat, recipes, and stories about home. Her father worked for an import-export company in her hometown of Paramaribo, the largest city, and she still has family in the country — lots of cousins, aunts, and upcles.

Others emigrated to the Netherlands to escape from unrest after the 1980 revolution. If you know of anyone else from Surinam, the woman can be reached through us. Time warp CHRISTCHURCH Girls’ High School is having a “time warp” open day on September 21 to mark its last year in the old Cranmer Square school buildings. The open day will be for old girls and friends of the school. Classrooms will be set up to show different decades in the school’s history, and the school is looking for old school uniforms, gym tunics, rompers, photographs, exercise books, pens, and anything else to make the backward leap seem more real. N.Y. standards JOHN LYONS, the man who has run horse-and-carriage rides in Christchurch for two seasons has sent a postcard from America to the Canterbury Promotion Council. His tourist rides start outside its offices. He says that he will be back to resume his service in September. He has been to New York City several times during his stay in the United States, and has seen the horse-and-buggy rides in Central Park that we know from television and the movies. The buggies are generally tacky, he says, and the horses are not well kept. Come back here THE HOKITIKA Kindergarten’s jungle gym has still not returned, and local people are beginning to fear for its safety. About a fortnight ago, workers at the

kindergarten put the wooden climbing apparatus on the porch in front of their building because it needed repair. Unfortunately, the tradesman did not come along before the man who carts the kindergarten’s rubbish to the tip. The jungle gym was taken, too. By the time kindergarten workers arrived at the tip to retrieve it, it was gone. A plea went out for it to be returned, but without result. The jungle gym may have been taken away for home use by someone who thought it was a lucky find, or someone might have carried it away for firewood. Joining them PRINCE CHARLES made some scathing remarks last year about modern architecture and what it was doing to London. He said that one skyscraper idea, later dropped, looked like a glass stump that would be more suitable in Chicago, which already had its share of stumps. He said that a National Gallery extension proposal would make the landmark a “vast municipal fire station.” Now the Prince has accepted an invitation to become a member of the Architecture Club. He will meet architects at least three times a year. The club’s secretary said that the Prince had some valuable points to make. A day's walk NOW THAT we have heard from another man whose forbears arrived in Canterbury in the first settlers’ ships, along comes a man who can remember hearing stories from a grandfather who was in Christchurch before' the First Four Ships.

His maternal grandfather was Jim Pratt, who was a baby when his family arrived and went to work on the Deans’ farm at Riccarton. It took the mother and children a whole day to walk from there to Lyttelton, barter for provisions, and make the return journey over the Port Hills. His grandfather enjoyed recounting the days when the location of the Cathedral Square public toilets — men’s and women’s — were the opposite of where they are now. There were no signs in those days — the toilets were just flax bushes, and you knew where you were supposed to go. When Jim Spratt took a young bride out to Methven to work — she was a pastrycook who could put 30 different kinds of cake on the Christmas table — the waggon horse spooked on the long straight. By the time they had it settled down, the wheat fields looked like rolling sea waves: they had been in a big earthquake. Making liberties NEW YORK’S finest lady, the Statue of Liberty, will be 100 years old next year, and is being lifted and braced in all the right places to keep her looking good. Knowing the Americans, anyone who can will probably cash in on her anniversary. Interest in taking advantage of the festivities has also been shown by the Taiwanese, who will export replicas of the statue. Manufacturers have received orders from the United States and Japan for statuettes made of glassreinforced plastic. The replicas will be seven metres (23ft) tall and sell at ?NZ10,650 each. ”