SEVERE HEAT WAVE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22005, 11 January 1935, Page 11

SEVERE HEAT WAVE

SOME TRYING TASKS ORDEAL IN CHRIST CHURCH TAR-SEALING AND STOKING Work is generally admitted to be trying enough at any time, but when the thermometer hovers about the 90 degree mark and the wind blows unkindly in Christehurch from the north-west, few will deny that it is much more irksome than usual. Those who work with their hands look enviously on those who can sit down to their toil; those who work with their heads blame their office walls and pray for the " fresh" air of the streets. Many of these prayers, says the Press, were offered up in Christchurch last Monday. Many workers lamented their lot and longed for an iceberg or a thunder shower. The maximum shade temperature was 93.1 degrees. Tho great majority of the city people were working in circumstances a good deal more pleasant than they might have been. There were many jobs to be done which could be classed as "hot jobs" in mild weather, and which on Monday were much 'hotter than they have been previously this summer. The office worker might have complained, but a glance into the street, where the traffic officer stood and waved his arms on point duty, or the builder's labourer smashed his way through bricks and dust, must have been as good in comparison as a cold shower. The traffic officer must have sweltered, but he might have found it refreshing to see a gang of workmen spreading smoking tar on a particularly sunny section of the street. Over 90 Degrees all Day The tar-sealers would not have been grateful for the suggestion, but they might have found a certain solace watching the stokers at the city destructor —where the temperature was well above 90 degrees all day—or at any given iron foundry or factory in the town. It would be difficult to say which was the hotter job—stoking or spreading tar —but there would have been little dispute as to the obvious advantages enjoyed by office workers. Men were not the only sufferers in the heat, although many of them might have considered themselves unfortunate in comparison with women, in their cool dresses and shelter from the sun. Meals had to be cooked just as full and regularly as on the coldest day in winter; there were coppers to boil and clothes to wash—probably more clothes than on a winter Monday; and there was plenty of ironing to be done. Girl shop assistants had to stand in stuffy shops and be polite to difficult shoppers, waitresses had to rush back and forth in an atmosphere of steam and hot meats, and laundry girls had much more unpleasant things to do. Worfc on the Roadsides The town was hot enough and town work was hotter, but the country could have given the town a lesson in discomfort. On the peninsula the cocksfoot seed harvest is in full swing, and it would be hard to imagine anything more trying than cutting seed with a tickle on the unsheltered roadsides of the hills. There was at least one grass fire to be stamped out, and there were some dry and dusty fields to be harrowed. Near Rolleston, and elsewhere, men were working on the roads, heated almost beyond endurance by the sun, harried by the sickly smell of tar, and coated by the dust of passing cars. And in a dozen railway trains perspiring guards were punching the tickets of grimy passengers.