The Sidelights

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 105, 27 January 1940, Page 18

The Sidelights

JT was a bus,? week for Kupe and 1. but as we passed to and fro between the parties we chanced upon many a joke and remark, and here are some of the things seen and heard. Crowds of boys at the ice cream store below Berliampore School on the day they arrived, and a fruiterer. Mr. El liott, handing a ease of peaches to rhe escort as a gift to the lads. A volunteer gang loading luggage at the station, and among the perspiring helpers were Mr. J. G. Barclay. M P., Mr; Dennehy, chief inspector of Northland schools, and Mr. Brian Crawford, managing director of the “Advocate.” “Who wants dinner?” So called Mr. Dyer, chairman of the Wellington Education Board, as he stood, tea-towel in hand, passing plates of meat and vegetables across the servery, when Mr. Deavoll (secretary of the board) bad dished them out!

At the zoo on Sunday, Kupe gingerly demonstrating how to ride tin camel. . . . And by the talking parrot, one Maori lad trying to teach the bird to change its “Hullo” to “Tena koe." The expressions on the faces in one

of the buses when the soldiers changed guard at a gate barring the road at Fort Dorset.

The applause as each home district was flashed on the screen during the Northland film. And the spontaneous cheers—and hoots—which punctuated the main picture. The smile on Robbie’s freckled face as Mr. Hislop handed him his £5 attendance prize. . . . and the wonder that grew when he saw the panelled Banquet Hall and the huge bowl of multi-coloured hydrangeas on the polished table.

Kiwi tripping into tbe footlights at the reception and being saved by Mr Hislop and Mr. Fraser!

Oooh—the Exhibition. (That wa,what we heard in Monday’s trams.) Some girls who went walking in a “park” .before breakfast and were

stopped by a kindly policeman who regretted that “the 'Governor-General would not yet be up.” The surprised shouts from 700 as the fire engine turned into the school grounds in the mock alarm. If you were one of those who watched from the street—and there were many—you saw the big hoses —and the spravshowers sending Party C scuttling for shelter.

Boys and girls early astir on Wednesday morning and tramloads arriving in town with the city’s early morning workers.

The gasps of wonderment and delight at the luxury of the liner we visited.

Queues of boys and girls at the icedwater taps on board, sampling it for the first time.

And crowds of boys about the bridge and chart room, surreptitiously trying on the caps of the officers behind their backs!