SNOW IN OTAGO

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 29, 3 August 1939, Page 11

SNOW IN OTAGO

BURNS TURNS OVER

A few years ago Wellington added to the bright and sparkling gaiety of the race of Scots with a haggis story. Wellington has. done it again.. The Caledonian Society then had club rooms in Sturdee Street and the night was to stand out as the first Burns anniversary broadcast in NeAv Zealand, but Avas near disaster when the chief of the was told, below microphone level, that the stove wouldn't go and the haggis Avouldn't cook. With Scots initiative he found an immediate solution and suggested that it should be thrown upon the mercies of the people next door. They were only too happy and the haggis came in in ceremony, piped and oded. The Jewish Club was next door. Later the failure of the gas stove was investigated and was found to have been due to its peculiar construction, for it had a shilling-in-the-slot meter, and no one had put in a shilling.

The George Williams Club is one of the junior branches of the V.M.C.A and the boys are willing to try anything at least once. The mother of one of the boys promised to send him a genuine Otago haggis and a Burns Night, a trifle out of season, was taken up as a great idea. Mr. R. Nimmo is president of the V.M.C.A. and also is chief of the Caledonian Society and president of the Wellington Burns Club, so arrangements were easy.

He took Pipe-Major Stewart along With him and the cook, with the haggis on a charger, came down the hall with music and ceremony. The chief and twice president commenced the solemn Ode with a breadth of tongue proper to a Scot when a haggis is abroad, caught the haggis out of one corner of his eye, but carried on, to the last solemnity, and brought the knife down. Immediate effect! The haggis was a full? scale German sausage.

The explanation was simple and genuine. Show iri Otago had held up the haggis ahd as arrangements were too far ahead for a decent retreat the boys, went ahead with the next best Scots dish. ,

. Incidentally, it was Mr.. R. H. Nimmo who sent the haggis next door from the Sturdee Street club room on the big broadcast night.