Reporter’s diary

Press, 16 July 1987, Page 2

Reporter’s diary

Taxi deductions PRAISE for two Christchurch taxi-drivers who did more than just deliver their wares and collect their fares. An elderly woman left her equally elderly shopping trundler in a taxi boot. Two weeks later the driver reappeared with the trundler — repaired, ready for another lifetime of trundling. A different driver collected a young woman from the bus depot and took her to Cashmere. She left her umbrella in the boot, but thought it was not worth

bothering about. A few days later the family, hearing a thump, found the umbrella hanging from the front-door knob — a feat of memory equalled by the kindness shown by the driver in going out of her way to return the brolly. In perspective NOW that the annual brouhaha at Wimbledon is over, it is sobering to consider this extract from “Glad to be Grey,” by Peter Freedman: “Charlotte Cooper won her first Wimbledon singles final in 1892. After the match she cycled back to Surbiton, where she was staying with her brother. She found him in the garden, pruning his roses. Noticing that his sister looked fatigued, Dr Cooper asked: ‘What have you been doing, Chattie?’ ‘l’ve just won the championship,’ she told him. Whereupon Dr Cooper made no reply but continued his pruning.” Shoe care IN 1973 divers came across a ship’s bell in Plymouth Sound. It belonged to the Danish brigantine Catherina von Flensburg, which sank in 1786 . with a precious cargo of Russian calf skins. The secret of producing Russian calf —

considered to be the finest leather ever produced — was lost in the early 1900 s. So the cargo was salvaged by the shoemakers, New and Lingwood, original outfitters to Eton College. The skins had been cured in baths of rye or oat flour and yeast, hand finished and soaked in wood liquor, hand curried and then soaked in seal oil and birch tan oil. They had retained their musky aroma and water resistance in spite of 200 years in the mud and silt of the seabed. After soaking in fresh water and a little restoration, the leather was turned into shoes which will be exhibited alongside the raw material in London this month. Hot topic IF the Christchurch City Council is so- keen on clean air and doing away with smog, why did it include a pamphlet advertising cheap firewood with its latest rate demands? Hello? TELEPHONE answering machines are a part of life now but that doesn’t make them any easier to talk to. It will come as no surprise to learn that the latest gimmick in the United States and Canada is tok bestow a mood-of-the-<fV personality on

your machine with a special tape. For about SUSI 3 you can have a Humphrey Bogart soundalike answering callers with a new version of his lines from "Casablanca”: "Of all the answering machines in all the gin joints in all the towns in all of the world you had to call this one ...” Humorous hellos in the style of Groucho Marx and Bob Dylan are popular as well. For those wolverine days there are also tapes that snarl a peremptory greeting in the style of Count Dracula. But then, many businesses in Christchurch al-' ready have their resident telephone werewolves. Know your place PROOF that Auckland is New Zealand has been kindly supplied by Mr Peter Beecroft, of Christchurch. He writes: “I have long known that Aucklanders believe that Auckland stops at the Bombay Hills, and I have also known that Aucklanders feel that New Zealand stops at Hamilton and Rotorua. But the enclosed clearly indicates that they believe Christchurch is within the greater Auckland environs.” The enclosed was an envelope addressed to Mr Beecroft at “Christchurch, Auckland.” - —Jenny Feltham