Reporter’s diary

Press, 24 April 1987, Page 2

Reporter’s diary

Memories WITH ANZAC DAY upon us again, we are informed by an old war-horse of an embarrassing incident narrowly avoided. In 1975 the Officers’ Mess at Burnham Camp neglected to arrange a wreath, until frenzied telephone calls tracked one down — someone else’s cancelled order — late on Anzac Day eve. Some wag provided a card that said: “We nearly DID forget.” More sober counsel prevailed, and the wording was changed at the last minute. Mobile borne THE CAR — there is one beneath the paraphernalia — shown in the photograph, was sighted travelling north on State highway 6 through a West Coast rainstorm. The reasons for such a precarious load making such a desperate - trip are unknown. But the West Coast has been the scene of plenty of disappointment in recent months. Maybe it was a family seeking its fortune elsewhere. Or maybe they were just hacked off with the weather ...

Ice show FORTY performers will take to the ice in a twohour charity show to be staged at the Big Apple rink from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. tomorrow. Proceeds from the show will go to the Crippled Children Society.

Meeting REPORTER’S Diary was a little premature with its report that the Canterbury branch of the Gerontology Association would hold its first meeting this evening. The meeting will be on Monday. ...

Bucking the system TWO FELLOWS with a sense of the dramatic reported at the Railways booking office in Moorhouse Avenue to buy train tickets from Christchurch to Oamaru and back to Blenheim. They pooled their money for the tickets, and the booking clerk, Susan Chandler, gave them $1 change. One of the travellers — perhaps having seen the Tommy Steele musical, “Half a Sixpence,” in his youth — tore the note in half and gave one part to his companion. The halves of the sixpence in the musical reunited two childhood friends, but the Christchurch version of the story has a more mundane ending. The note was rejoined eventually to pay for part of a round of drinks. Fleeced

LONDON’S “Daily Telegraph” reports an item that appeared in the small newspaper, “Bexley Leader”: “This week when I visited the farm before the first visitors — well behaved school parties are welcomed — cuddly two-day-old spring lambs were gambling in their pens.”