ON THE MAST.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 326, 20 January 1932, Page 1

ON THE MAST.

How a Photographer Got his Picture. WASHING THE AERIAL. One hundred and fifty feet above the level of the pavement, two men clung like flies to the narrow girders of 3YA’s lattice mast and waved cheerfully to a photographer on the roof of the building below. It was not a case of risking life and limb in heroic devotion to duty, but a matter of pleasing an eager photographer who had panted up three flights of stairs in the hope of securing a good picture. The men had been hauling down the aerial for its annual overhaul, and the photographer had expected a risky climb to the top of the mast. But the business was very dull, for they stood on the roof, fiddled with some ropes and the aerial came down with a clatter, to be pulled in and washed with plenty of hot water to remove the deposit of soot and dust gained from Christchurch chimnevs during its long sojourn in the upper air. But the photographer wanted his picture, and so, to plea.se him, the men a if c^lrn^) the mast. Up and up they went, holding carefully to each root rest, passing the broad base and moving all the time towards the tapermg top. The first one got there and, hanging by one hand, waved the other nonchalantly towards the Cathedral snire, as if to say, “ I’m as high as you now, old fellow,” while his companion wrapped both arms lovingly around a girder and looked cautiously down at the street and its human ants below. And the photographer peered up at pointing finger of the mast and the black blob on its finger nail, pointed his black box, there was a click and he shouted happy thanks to the human flies on the girders. He had his picture and was happy.