People and Their Doings.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19238, 27 November 1930, Page 8

People and Their Doings.

Will Mr M’Combs And His Wife Both Sit On Tramway Board ? : An Old Tennis Champion Visits The City : Forbury Trotting Club Officials Who Are Interested In Gallopers.

MR B. S.* IRWIN, the president of the Forbury Park Trotting Club, which is holding its meeting in Dunedin this week, is a well-known Dunedin lawyer, and is an enthusiastic sportsman. His interest in horses is not confined to trotters and pacers, as he is a prominent official, also, of the Dunedin Jockey Club. His racing jacket is frequently carried in galloping races on various South Island courses, it being as well-known in Canterbury as it is in Otago. It is nothing new in Otago to find men closely identified with the two sports. In the early days in Dunedin, trotting events were regularly included in the programmes of the Jockey Club, whose secretary at that time, Mr Sidney James, did a great deal to promote the trotting sport in the South. He was succeeded as secretary by his son, Mr H. L. James, who also acted for many years as secretary of the trotting club. sg rjMIE CLUB was originally known as the Tahuna Park Trotting Club, in the days when it raced on the Showgrounds of that name. Later, when the growing population of the south made it necessary to cater more extensively for the public, the club purchased its present home at Forbury Park, not very far away from the original course. Forbury Park was for many } r ears the racecourse of the Dunedin Jockey Club, and it remained idle for a long time after being vacated by the galloping club, when it shifted its quarters to Wingatui more than thirty years ago. Mr Irwin is not the only Forbury Park official who is mixed up also with gallopers. The vice-president, Mr R. M. Greenslade, owns a number of galloping horses, and so does Mr J. Richards, one of the stewards. Another of the stewards, Mr G. J. Barton, is one of the most prominent trotting owners in the Dominion, his team being trained at Addington by Mr W. J. Tomkinsoh, while he has also several gallopers in training at Wingatui. W “8? >§? HTHERE are no instances in New Zealand of husband and wife sitting together on a public body, but there are many in England, and if Air and Airs J. Al’Combs are elected to the Tramway Board to-day they may point to the precedents found in England, in the case of the Astors, Alosleys and Phillipsons where husband and wife have been elected to Parliament. Then there is the case of Air Lloyd George and His daughter, who also have seats in the House of Commons. Air and Airs Al’Combs first met in connection with the Young People’s No-License League and the Children’s Aid Society, of which they were both members. They were both members, also, of the Progres-

sive Liberal Association, and Air M’Combs stood as a Progressive Liberal for Avon. It was as a Labour candidate, however, that he secured election. That was in 1913 when he headed the poll against Miller and J. T. Laurenson (the late George Laurenson’s brother). At the second ballot, the Liberals voted for Al’Combs. Airs Al’Combs has been selected and endorsed as a Parliamentary candidate for the Christchurch North seat at the coming election. She and her husband have taken a combined interest in questions that they take any interest in at all. 9 * A COUNTERBLAST to a bitter at. tack on Sir John French, which was made some time ago by General Huguet, head of the French Mission at General Headquarters, Brigadier-General E. L. Spears has just written another book, called “ Liaison, 1914.” He attributes the blame for the Alons disaster to General Lanrezac, who allowed the British to advance on the faith of his promised attack, and then did nothing while the Germans slipped across his front to fall on the British Army. ® & 9 A PART from the historical importance of the indictment contained in the book, it has some rather amusing incidents of the war. The lines of communication were guarded by elderly Frenchmen in plain clothes, armed with shot guns, known as the “ G.V.C.’s They were a nightmare. The less they knew, the more suspicious they were sure to be; the greater one’s hurry, the more slowly would they inspect one’s papers, leisurely turning them round and round . . . They were perfectly useless and never had the least idea of what kind of a pass was required. I remember hearing of an enterprising hospital nurse who got out of Calais by showing a London Hippodrome ticket. W W & _\T THE BEGINNING o£ the war the French regular troops were almost as ignorant of British uniforms, and frequently opened fire on otir troops and aeroplanes. I met a small detachment of French troops in charge of a corporal, who mistook me for a German. I . . . pointed with some asperity to my Legion of Honour, which I used to’ \tfear when in the French lines, as much for purposes of identification as for any other reason. This rather took the corporal aback, but only for a moment. “We thought you might have been given that for surrendering!” he said.

Tl TR J. C. PEACOCK, who is appearing for the plaintiffs in a trade marks case at the Supreme Court in Christchurch, is a Wellington solicitor who is best known as an old tennis champion. He was contemporaneous with F. M. B. Fisher and the two played a great deal together, but whereas Fisher never secured the New Zealand singles title, Peacock won it in 19U1 and 1910. . , The most interesting final Peacock has played in during recent years was m the doubles championship of the New Zealand tournament at the U nited Club s grounds in Christchurch against Ollivier and beay. When the Canterbury men were leading, Wilson, Peacock’s partner, met with an accident when running in to volley a very fast return from Seay. The ball flew off the edge of his racquet and injured his eye, and an adjournment was taken to allow him to recover. When the match was resumed, with Wilson well bandaged, the Canterbury men very sportingly diverted their attack from Wilson, and in consequence broke up their own game, with disastrous results, the Wellington pair winning the title. Peacock was very clever overhead, and could smash winners from any part of the covirt. 9 9 $F STRIKING testimony of the premonitions in dreams has been published in connection with the RlOl disaster. A resident of Hull, Air Ashworth Barlow, said that while half asleep and half awake about 1.45 a.m. on Sunday morning, he imagined he was on board the airship, when suddenly there was the sound of a gong and a voice shouted, “Every man for himself.” Then he thought he heard a loud explosion, and that he was struggling to get out of one of the airship’s cabins. This roused him, and he scrambled out of bed and woke his daughter, and told her of his dream. Afteh that, Air Barlow states, he could not sleep, and called in a constable from the street and told him the story. Air Barlow’s daughter and Police Constable Ingamells corroborated his statement. 3? A REMARKABLE story of a woman’s certainty, following two vivid dreams, that disaster would overtake the RlOl has also been revealed. The dreamer is Armstrong, a twenty-four-year-old Irishwoman employed as a night nurse at the Willaston Nursing Home, near Nantwich, Cheshire. The matron of the home, Aliss AI. Johnson, said:— Nurse Armstrong said she had had a dream in which she saw in ghastly detail an appalling air disaster. She described the vision of many burnt and mangled bodies lying trapped in wreckage, and begged me to make known her dream in some official quarter as a warning against the flight of RlOl. The next afternoon exactly the same thing happened.

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